
Class. 



Book ■ J <5 



IZ1Z 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/sciencephilosoph02basc 



S3 



SCIENCE, 



7 



Philosophy 




lectures 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



LOWELL INSTITUTE, BOSTON. 



By 



JOHN BASCOM, 



Prof, in Williams College, Author of the " Principles of Psychology 
"Esthetics." etc. 



NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM & SONS, PUBLISHERS, 

association buildings, twenty-third street. 

1872. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

JOHN BASCOM, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



stereotyped by 

Dennis Bro's & Thorne, 

auburn, n. "v 



PREFACE. %£? ^ ^ 






Y. 



\ 



These lectures, though in part an extension of 
principles already presented by us to the public, we 
have thought it well to publish, both as developing 
the central doctrines of our intellectual constitution in 
new directions, and as : more firmly establishing them 
in old ones. It may not be unserviceable to the hasty 
critic, nor unwelcome to the patient reader, to indi- 
cate at once the points in this discussion most im- 
portant. We start with philosophy, seeking in the 
mind itself those ideas by means of which it groups 
and explains the facts of the physical and the spiritual 
world. The close of the second lecture presents a 
tabular arrangement of primitive notions, which con- 
tains the key of the method adopted. This presenta- 
tion contains new features ; and, if at the same time it 
be just, the fields of science, philosophy and religion 
are at once defined by it, and the grounds of contro- 
versy greatly narrowed. Science and philosophy, 
starting with certain common ideas, take up each of 



IV PREFACE. 

them distinguishing notions, and, moving along inde- 
pendent lines of inquiry, meet again in religion. 

The plan of the lectures and their merit, whatever 
this may be, centre here, and are commended to un- 
sparing, yet fair and searching, criticism. If these 
lectures shall serve, even by a little, to deepen our 
impression of our powers, and our sense of hope in 
their handling, a chief object will be reached. We 
believe in the unspeakable elevation of our spiritual 
nature, and are willing often to shift the view, if so be, 
through clouds and mists, we may catch some more 
distinct prospect of those heights on which it is our 
earliest and latest effort to plant the feet of men. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 

MIND, THE SEAT AND SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 

The mind first in value; all power flows from it. — Some form of Philosophy 
and Religion inevitable ; Comte. — An unsound Faith can be excluded 
only by a sound one ; Huxley ; Hume. — We are put by Philosophy in the 
true line of progress. — Dependence of the Present on the Past ; if we reject 
the last we lose the first. — The exclusively scientific spirit restricts and 
thus debases Thought. — Mark out the directions of Inquiry. — The Mind 
central between the Physical and Spiritual realms; study each from this 
point ; thus reach Science, Philosophy, and Religion 5 



LECTURE II. 

PRIMITIVE IDEAS. 

Conflicts of Philosophy concerning Intuitive Ideas. — Why? — What meant by 
them. — An issue found in them with Materialism. — A supposition. — Offices 
performed by these Ideas ; preliminary to Classification. — No antecedent 
improbability against them. — Physical Inquirers use tliem. — Cause and 
Effect. — Force; the part it plays in Science. — Suicidal for Materialism to 
deny the notion of Cause ; yet cannot reach it by Generalization. — Gener- 
alization must rest on direct Knowledge. — First, these ideas yielded by 
careful Analysis ; Second, the Mind begins its action by means of them ; 
Third, proof found in the conclusions yielded by them ; Fourth, in the 
light and order they bring. —Enumeration 27 



LECTURE III. 

THE FIELD OF PHYSICAL FACTS. 

Space the field, Causation the law of Physical Facts ; Existence ; Number ; 
Resemblance. — Space, the condition of Physical Events ; distinction be- 
tween these and Spiritual Events. — Space, its connection with Mathematics. 
— Primitive powers of the mind here shown. — Causation ; Character ; 
Fundamental axiom. — Applicable to Physical Facts alone. — Knowledge 
dependent on it. — Of Existence. — Of Comprehension. — Of Perpetuity. — Its 
Proof ; Hume ; Mill. — Philosophy errs how ; Dependence of Science on 
Philosophy. — Materialism. — Powers of the Mind 55 



2 CONTENTS. 

LECTURE IV. 

RESEMBLANCE NOT THE SOLE CONNECTION C c THOUGHT. 

Resemblance substituted for Causation.— Antecedent difficulties : First, this 
notion also Primitive ; Second, does not give Explanation. — This res- 
olution of all Judgments into Resemblance maintained by Hamilton ; by 
Spencer. — The significance of this view. — Ethics. — Religion. — How this 
resolution possible. — More exact Analysis. — Idea of time as an illustration. 
Each idea gives original Judgments. — Resemblance to displace Causation ; 
this impossible. — Why ? — Botany. — Zoology. — Physics. — Chemistry. — 
The Mind takes no pleasure in Resemblances except as they point to Causes. 
—All knowledge of Physical Events implies Causes.— Nature, middle ground 
between us and God. — Gives conditions of action.— A middle term of 
Thought.— Final Causes. — Miracles.— Liberty.— Causation must be granted 
by the Materialist as a ground of attack on Freedom. — Summation 79 

LECTURE V. 

MATTER ; ITS EXISTENCE AND NATURE. 

Matter is the seat of forces. — Dependent for a belief in its existence on the Idea 
of Cause. — How reached in Perception. — Hamilton. — Examination of the 
several Senses. — Anomalies of Vision. — Movement in the organs of Sense. 
— Substitution of Senses. — Delirium. — The character of Consciousness. — 
Idealism the logical issue of the doctrine of direct perception. — What is 
Matter? — Force. — The imagination; its embarrassments. — What do we 
know of Matter ?— Effects : these precisely express Causes ; are their final 
definition. — We must admit the being of those Forces or Causes. — Many 
Forces, not one Force. — Correllation of Forces. — No absolute oneness of 
Causes. — Force of gravity.— Relation of this view of Matter to the being of 
God. — Force suggests a personal Agent. — Two theories. — Second Causes. 
— Direct agency. — Advantages of the last 104 



LECTURE VI. 

CONSCIOUSNESS, THE FIELD OF MENTAL FACTS. 

Where are the facts of Mind to be found ? — Various answers ; Mill ; Maudsley ; 
True answer ; ends of inquiry. — Impossible to reach facts of Mind other- 
wise than through Consciousness. — Phrenologists. — These facts separate 
from all others. — Lewes, What is in Consciousness? — Hamilton, What are 
Mental Phenomena ? — No fact to be understood in its mental bearings save 
in the Mind. — The two kinds of facts perfectly distinct ; Reason of this. — 
Space and Consciousness, two ideas each with its own facts ; time covers 
both. — What is Consciousness? — Prof. Porter. — -Consequences of regarding 
it as a regulative Idea.— What the test of the validity of mental facts? — 
Spencer. — A mental power shown by a fixed result. — Such powers of equal 
authority.— Mind reposes on itself. 130 



CONTENTS. 3 

LECTURE VII. 

RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 

What the law of Mental Facts. — On the perceptive, on the executive side. — 
Right, Liberty. — The first, the Facts to be explained.— Central Fact of 
Moral Nature is perception of Right. — Two sides, perceptive, emotional, 
indissoluble. — Utilitarianism fails partially on the perceptive side, wholly 
on the emotional side. — Vacillation by Utilitarians. — (i) Obligation due to 
Happiness ; (2) to Society ; (3) to Blessedness. — The intuitive view, (1) Ob- 
jection, favors Dogmatism ; Bentham. — Grounds of rightness in action. — (2) 
Objection, Hopeless variety of opinions, allows no growth ; Martineau. 
— (3 ) Objection, An ultimate good not rational ; Dr. Hopkins; Bentham. — 
To perform an act as right merely, not rational ; Answer. — The action is 
right because of its consequences ; Answer. — Relations of an intuitive right 
(1) ot Happiness. — Why reached by the right. — A test of the right, — (2) to 
Daily Conduct.— A Supreme good, is there any? — This view comes back to 
a law. — Why not practically safe in pursuing highest happiness, — (3) to the 
Intellect, — (4) to God, — Dr. Hopkins, — (5) to Immortality 153 

LECTURE VIII. 

LIBERTY. 

Resume. — Notion of Cause contrasted with Liberty. — Mind spontaneous. — 
Sensations, Thoughts ; dependence on each other of mental acts. — A force 
variable within itself a spontaneous one. — Liberty more than spontaneity. — 
Liberty, what. — Proof, not in Consciousness. — Mind offers the Idea in 
explanation of certain facts. — (1) General conviction. — (2) Responsibility; 
Guilt ; If the doctrine of the necessitarian were true it would prevail at once. 
— (3) Nature of motives ; Connection between objects and the desires awa- 
kened ; Between these and volition ; Need of an alternative ; If none, 
then no liberty ; Our moral nature furnishes it. — (4) Inadequacy of other 
theories ; Bain, Mill, make responsibility equal punishability. — (1) Objection 
to the theory now presented, Liberty equals Fortuity ; Answer. — The 
spontaneity denied to Mind granted to Matter. — (2) Objection, Liberty gives 
no weight to Motives. — In what sense true ; Mill. — (3) Objection, Interferes 
with foreknowledge. — God equal to his work 185 

LECTURE IX. 

LIFE; NATURE AND ORIGIN. — THE MIND. 

The True, the Beautiful and the Good, rest on spontaneity. — Nature and source 
of Mental Life. — Life ; Spencer's definition; Its difficulties; Definition. 
— Man ; Amceba. — Three questions, Why a life-power? Whence the life of 
the globe? If a life-power, its Nature? — The first question, Spontaneous 
generation ; Huxley. — Protoplasm. — What the life-power introduced to ex- 
plain ; its use of molecular forces. — Life is the architect; Odling ; Bush- 
nell. — Second question : Darwin's line of argument ; its difficulties ; if 
accepted, how stands the question. — Natural selection. — Variation. — Vital 
force conditioned to orderly change. — Small increments mark new forces 
— Theory of development ; Spencer. — Third question : Life a super-phys- 
ical power ; Reasons. — Mind super-added to life, belongs to man alone as a 
thinking power ; Proof. — Life and Mind in interaction 209 



4 CONTENTS. 

LECTURE X. 

INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL FORCES AND SPIRITUAL FORCES. 

Resume. — Force easily referable to God. — Life more so. — (i) Two forms of 
Phenomena, each to be inquired into under its own Ideas ; Fortuity ; 
Fatality; Conflict of tendencies. — Miracles; Antipathy to. —Science; 
Evasion of the point. — Their harmony with Mental Facts. — How find en- 
trance. — Office ; Dangers of. — Prayer ; Unbelief in ; Evasion ; How an- 
swered ; Rationality of; What may be asked for; Addressed to Faith; 
Derision of. — Influences of the Spirit. — The position taken decidedly right or 
decidedly wrong ; Appeal whither ; Reason of. — The attitude of the Sciolist. 
— Metaphysics. — Here lies the last Appeal. — If not able to follow it here, 
we are to wait on general conviction 238 

LECTURE XL 

PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 

God at first thought to start with matter; Later, the nature of matter better 
understood ; Seat of thought ; involves of all. — Old ground lost of belief; 
Infidelity. — Life, a point of new interest ; True defence ; the conditioned 
involves the Unconditioned. — First Cause ; why faulty in language and in 
thought. — An Infinite Person demanded as source of all. — Notion of the In- 
finite ; Mansel ; Spencer ; Inconceivable. — Infinite in connection with space ; 
Infinite and indefinite ; Definiteness of the conception as regards space, 
as regards time ; Application to power, to knowledge. — Notion not illusory. 
— Two fields of knowledge. — Conceive God most correctly when. — Omni- 
presence. — Mind related to space by the body. — Space, what. — Time, what. 
— Worth of the conceptions offered ; Martineau ; Max Miiller 262 

LECTURE XII. 

CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE ; FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 

Philosophy central ; Gives the limits of science ; Defines its own limits. — Depart- 
ment of pure ideas. — Science, what ; Tabular view of sciences. — Relation of 
Philosophy to religion ; Religion rests on reason, on the moral sense. — 
Order of intellectual growth, reason ; the individual, the nation, nations. 
Early predominance of the personal element ; Later, influence of material 
forces. — The order enforced by Positive Philosophy ; Spencer, Buckle. — 
All connections those of the mind. — Appeal always lies to Philosophy. — 
Two protections against the error of a wrong theory. — Men illogical in 
deduction, fail to understand what they believe ; Time develops the good 
and the evil of a system. — Spencer's Principles of Psychology. — Hume and 
miracles. — Mind misled by familiarity, by concentration on particular topics ; 
its desire for unity ; the most rigid system least likely to be correct 288 



SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY 



AND 



RELIGION. 



LECTURE I. 

DEFENCE OF PHILOSOPHY. 

The theme which is to occupy us in the lectures 
before us, is — " Mental Philosophy ; its Bearings on 
Science and Religion." We thus have occasion to 
direct our attention to ourselves, the nature, form 
and validity of our knowledge ; what hold we have 
on the invisible world within us ; what hold, through 
this, we have on the visible world about us, and what, 
through these both, on the future, visible and invisi- 
ble, which lies before us — that future without which 
the present perishes, as the flower plucked from the 
stem, leaving no seed behind it. 

This theme it is a pleasure to meditate upon, and a 
pleasure to present, and, though I know how strongly 
the current of intellectual life is setting elsewhere, 
how rapidly and gayly the shallops that float on other 
streams speed onward, I cannot but hope that it shall 
not be barren to the attentive mind. 

Would we not do well to confess to a certain shame 
at the steadiness with which every one peers outward, 
as if the pageant of the exterior world had dazed us ; 
as if the long and gala procession of nature opened 



6 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

and occupied all our senses in dumb astonishment, 
and left us, like some country rustic, with parted 
lips and bewildered thought, to be knocked down and 
run over by some cavalier in the ongoing throng? 
So has it happened to many. Philosophy, the self- 
respect, composure and assurance of philosophy have i 
forsaken them, and, venturing into the throng, some 
bullying law of development, some sanguine, sanguin- 
ary theory of physics has tripped them, and quickly 
they have found themselves regarded as little higher 
than monkeys, and treated no better. We believe 
in the principle that life is more than meat, the mind 
more, at least to itself, than all that the mind contem- 
plates, and offer it as a first reason why we should 
pursue with patience the line of thought before us. 
Stars and nebulae, atoms and molecules, are good 
things not to be objected to, but they are so, chiefly 
because they interest the mind, provoke and reward 
its inquiries, and are thus to it means of strength. 
Food is nothing save through the palate which ap- 
preciates it ; knowledge is nothing save through the 
appetite of the mind that knows it, and the knowing 
power is thus the centre at which converge all lines 
of thought. It is worth our while to pursue butter- 
flies, entrap moths, pin beetles, but chiefly worth our 
while because each and all of them are fragments 
of the divine thought wherewith we feed our own 
thought, and ourselves grow in the divine image of 
knowledge and strength. Nor is this mental feeding 
like the physical feeding of the brute, that, under a 
few instincts, with a few feelers, goes on safely by 
day and by night, finding a perfect fulfillment of 



DEFENCE OF PHILOSOPHY. 7 

every end in its own blind action. Mental life is 
crystalline and transparent, not adhesive and opaque. 
There is in it an interior plan known to itself, an 
eye that ranges through its own products, not merely 
to discover their order, but to aid in its establishment. 
If any deny this, they equally with us must take their 
appeal to the mind itself, and in the study we propose 
decide the points of difference. Indeed, we are will- 
ing, by the amplitude of what we claim, to provoke 
denial, and thus initiate inquiry on the grounds of 
philosophy. Better is it to do this than quietly to 
build the defences of thought on headlands deserted 
and without assailants, all the world beside voyaging 
to some polar sea in patient pursuit of another phys- 
ical fact. Truly it is not to our credit, it cannot 
remain to our credit, that we should wish less to 
know what we ourselves are, and what are the 
sources, conditions, issues of our lives, than to know 
how the world was rolled up into an opaque ball out 
of the undefined nebulae, covering, in the dawn of 
time, the unenclosed fields of space ; or how life ap- 
peared on, and spread over the world, how it strug- 
gled for possession, multiplied similar types, shot up 
into higher types, and became like a forest, pursuing 
the light with its growing summits, yet hiding, in 
every inch of soil below, many living centres. Why 
this interest in the way out of myth and chaos, if we 
have no corresponding interest in man ; in every 
view of the subject, the end and goal of progress ? 
Why not stand on the summit and look down from 
the tower of our spiritual strength, as well as climb 
up to it ? It is thought, mind, reason, is it not, that 



8 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

lights us at every step of the ascent, and may it not 
be possible that the mind itself may be, like the lan- 
tern of curious construction, manifold reflection and 
changeable light, more worthy of study even than the 
structure which lifts it — a sentinel of unsafe and dreary 
seas ? If it is a pleasure to know, is not that pleasure 
most complete when we ourselves are the objects 
of knowledge ? If knowledge is power, is not that 
power greatest when it pertains to mind ? If truth 
fills the soul with its own satisfaction, is not that sat- 
isfaction most perfect when the truths that confer it 
pertain to the highest subjects of thought ? What- 
ever the excellence of knowledge, that excellence 
cannot fail to be enhanced by being attached to that 
central, luminous and self-luminous, conscious and 
self-conscious thing — the human soul. 

But from this first ground of interest — that all lines 
of thought converge in the mind, there follows a 
second — that power and control, flow forth from it. 
Even when it suffers, it is not a passive recipient, and 
when it acts, it is the image and the sole image of all 
spontaneous and free movement. You are pleased 
to deny this spontaneity. We can only say, let us 
discuss it, and see. It is a poor thing to contemplate 
the forces that flow in on the mind, bowing it to the 
physical constitution of the world, to the influences 
that find expression in soil, climate, race and civiliza- 
tion, unless we also consider that personal power 
which meets them, rises above them, shapes them, 
uses them, and, by slow digestion, incorporates them 
into its own structure. Some dark paint may be 
dashed at once in quantity upon the color we are 



DEFENCE OF PHILOSOPHY. 9 

mingling ; all seems hopelessly blackened ; yet as 
we proceed, the light strikes up from beneath, in the 
end gets the mastery, and puts its own cheerful face 
upon the whole affair. So physical facts rush in and 
spread over the face of society a deluge of barbarism. 
Anon, in the slow mingling of centuries, there come 
up from beneath the germs of past mental power, 
and a new civilization is the product. It is in this 
out-going power of mind that we find liberty, duty, 
and the mastery of the individual and the race. In 
these we all practically believe, and many of us theo- 
retically. If the foundations of duty are here ; if 
what we may do and what we ought to do are found 
here ; if the questions, what we are to require of 
others, and the fitness of what we suffer in ourselves, 
are here tested ; if hence are the sources and laws 
of the practical power we are to exercise ; if the lines 
of rational action, which are momentarily initiated, 
and become momentarily more and more unmanage- 
able in the good and evil that flow from them, here 
originate, then truly all the obligations to know, that 
life can lay upon us rest primarily here. If duties 
there are for me or another, then it becomes a duty 
to know these duties. If power there is for evil or 
good, then should there be a knowledge of this power, 
that it may be used. Since our activities, more to us 
than all activities beside, go forth from ourselves, 
their limits and laws should be sought in ourselves. 
But activity is not duty alone ; it is joy and hope 
as well. Among the preeminent characteristics of 
man is this — that the future is as much and even 
more to him than the present. It is only the spend- 



10 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

thrift and profligate, that mortgage the future to the 
present ; the philosopher and Christian make the one 
the seed-time of the other, and accept much hard 
labor now, in view of a proportionate harvest here- 
after. These hopes, this gathering up of the aims of 
life, and casting them far ahead, as a gauntlet into 
the midst of the enemy, are a further and urgent rea- 
son for the inquiry proposed. No mind, earnest and 
broad, will abide in the momentary joy of the present. 
The life that is in it must become to it a light where- 
with to forecast the road to be travelled, and whether 
it shall be a faint, flickering flame, crowding back by 
a little the heavy darkness, casting portentous shad- 
ows, giving a weird, uncertain aspect to surrounding 
objects, suggesting rather than revealing danger ; or 
a searching head-light, gleaming far along the safe 
way, must depend upon the nature of that truth that 
is caught up in reflection by the soul, and thrown 
forward on its path to immortality. Who can be 
robbed of his hopes, and who can define them and 
make them certain, save in a mastery of the nature 
and conditions of his own life ? And who can find 
the foundations of this knowledge, save in philosophy 
and religion — religion as it rests back on philosophy, 
philosophy as it opens the way to religion ? If we 
are to enlarge our vision at all, if there is to be any 
daylight, any inheritance for us in the years to come, 
the grounds of our convictions are to be found in 
the structure of the soul, and God's providential min- 
istration to it. In whatever field we glean knowl- 
edge, the best ministration of that knowledge must 
be to ourselves, to that hidden life which is the dis- 



DEFENCE OF PHILOSOPHY. II 

tinctive feature of man, and increasingly so as he 
becomes intelligent. Indeed, what is intelligence but 
the enlargement of the life within us — an imparting 
of penetration to its thoughts, and power to its emo- 
tions. The character of this life, the home of the 
soul, the domestic companionship to which it is ever* 
retiring, the seat of true spiritual consumption, at 
which the crude material of good the external world 
affords is turned into food and pleasure, must depend 
on our method of transmuting knowledge into emo- 
tion, wisdom into serene satisfaction and assured 
hope ; and in this transformation all knowledge be- 
comes philosophy and religion. How slight a thing 
is it to know, unless we know also the transmutation 
of knowledge into peace and joy ; unless truth is to 
us that light which suffuses the clouds, wooes them 
out of the region of night, and makes them the beauty 
and glory of the day. 

We are here introduced to another class of reasons 
why we should have a sound philosophy — I use the 
word as equivalent to mental philosophy — and a 
sound religion. So certain are men ultimately to 
come home — home to themselves, that it is impossi- 
ble for them in any numbers or for any length of 
time to be destitute of these estimates of the mind 
itself, and of its relations to seen and unseen things. 
I care not how vigorously men scoff at philosophy, it 
is only to make way for some form of philosophy. 
To discard metaphysics is the child's sport of whip- 
ping round the ring. What we pursue in front, pur- 
sues us in turn in the rear. Some notion of what 
liberty and thought are, drives the physicist on as he 



12 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

strives to overthrow the general belief concerning 
them. No intelligent man is ever without at least 
the adumbration of a system of metaphysics and on- 
tology with their religious corollaries ; and the vigor 
with which he rejects ordinary beliefs, held and en- 
forced under these names, only shows the nature of 
his own convictions, and how much in earnest he is 
about them. If not Trinitarian, then Unitarian ; if 
not Unitarian, then Deist ; if not Deist, then Atheist 
.or Pantheist ; or if not Christian, then Spiritualist or 
Buddhist, or one of the isms that come in to occupy 
the soul, swept of its first faith. Such is the univer- 
sal law of thought — if not realism, then idealism ; if 
not idealism, then materialism. No more striking 
illustration of this can be offered than that furnished 
by Comte, the founder of positive philosophy. He 
started with 'discarding theology and metaphysics as 
at once impracticable and effete. He put in their 
place positive knowledge — the knowledge of observa- 
tion and induction. Could he, the leader of a school, 
drawing many eyes, a bold pioneer in independent 
thought, pledged to consistency and tenacity, hold 
himself firm on simple denial, stand poised on nega- 
tions, falling on neither hand into affirmative, dog- 
matic belief ? When the momentum of pure thought 
had expended itself, and the soul began to look around 
for something to embrace, something to console itself 
with, that great intellect was put to the strange, the 
surprising task of the invention of a religion. Says 
Martineau : " Since the publication of the books of 
Exodus and Leviticus, no more elaborate system of 
* religion ' has appeared than M. Comte's. It has its 



DEFENCE OF PHILOSOPHY. 1 3 

cultus, private and public ; its organization of dogma ; 
its discipline, penetrating to the whole of life ; its 
altars, its temples, its symbolism, its prescribed ges- 
tures and times ; its ratios and length of the different 
parts and sorts of prayer ; its rules for opening or 
shutting the eyes ; its ecclesiastical courts and rules 
of canonization ; its orders of priesthood and scale of 
benefices ; its adjustment of the temporal to the spir- 
itual power ; its novitiate and consecration ; its nine 
sacraments ; its angels, its last judgment, its para- 
dise : in short, all imaginable requisites of a religion 
— except a God.", 

Having banished the Omnipotent One from his phil- 
osophy, he proceeds to occupy the vacant place with 
an invention of his own. This new being, this Grand- 
Eire, born of Comte in definite time and with specific 
circumstances, receives from him this philosophical 
description, table of contents, schedule of value — " the 
aggregate of co-operative beings endowed with ner- 
vous systems of three centres " — and is handed over 
to the world of art under the symbol of " a woman of 
thirty with a child in her arms." The worship has 
the merit of being in harmony with its object. " At 
your altar in the morning, for instance, you are to 
adore your mother, become subjective to you, and 
requiring to be brought before your secret vision. 
To help the effort and express the inwardness of the 
object, you must shut your eyes. This done, you 
first set up the place on which the figure is to enter ; 
next, fix her intended attitude ; thirdly, choose her 
dress ; and then, at length, permit herself to glide into 
view ; taking care to idealize by subtraction only, not 



14 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

by addition. In due order the prayer to her ensues, 
consisting for the first half of the hour in ' commem- 
oration' of her goodness; then for the rest, in 'effu- 
sion ' of the feelings thus awakened." This " effu- 
sion," in most cases, would probably take somewhat 
less than the remaining half hour. It was rather of ■ 
an heroic worship, however, as this morning service 
was to be followed by a mid-day devotion, and this by 
an evening prayer. Yet, as this last was to be said 
in bed, it would, doubtless, in practice, exhibit great 
elasticity, and fit in between sleeping and waking 
with much snugness and comfort. " The public 
worship only applies the same principle to a wider 
circle of relations, running through and celebrating 
all the great social ties, the several stages of human 
progress, the natural classes of the body-politic : 
and forming an ecclesiastical calendar, with special 
services all through the year. The temples are all to 
face towards the metropolis of humanity — Paris, of 
course ; but meanwhile the positivists will not object 
to use the churches and cathedrals as they are, and 
occupy them as they fall into disuse. Even the 
Madonnas may pass well enough, with altered name, 
for the Goddess of Humanity. But instead of the 
cross (or of the crescent) must be substituted, as sign 
of the faith, the curve described by the hand in touch- 
ing the three chief cerebral organs. There are no 
elements too incongruous to blend in this strange 
' religion.' The dissecting-room, the high altar, the 
lover's bower, all subscribe their proportion to its 
ceremonial and sentiment ; not without an ever-recur- 
ring preponderance of the last, significantly expressed 



DEFENCE OF PHILOSOPHY. 1 5 

in the saying, that ' soon the knee of man will never 
bend except to woman.' " 

If anything is at once absurd, pitiful, strange, 
instructive, it is this prince in the school of modern, 
materialistic thought, whose intellectual radiance is 
spread through a larger circle by Englishmen — men 
and women, first commanding attention, astonishment 
and admiration by the peremptory, positive way in 
which he turns his back on the Christian system, and 
then providing for his bewildered disciples, the above 
private theatricals, in which the farce so outweighs 
the tragedy as to make gravity impossible. Yet 
here is instruction. Who will say what tricks and 
fooleries are not possible to man in the night-time. 
Forsaking the sober light of day, a weird, fantastic, 
extravagant spirit takes possession of him, and the 
sense of liberty passes into the intoxication of revelry. 
A wonderful Nemesis overtakes the irreverent, pro- 
fane mind ; it plays loosely and wildly, and at length, 
like one who, on the face of a precipice, has exhausted 
his strength in climbing and failed of the top, it falls 
forever, overpowered and spent by its own activities. 
The inquiry of Eliphaz becomes pertinent : " Should 
a wise man utter vain knowledge, and fill his belly 
with the east wind ? " Thus also Buddha, rejecting 
the conception of God, was himself exalted to the 
vacant throne by his later disciples. 

A plain and pressing reason for a sound philosophy 
is found in the fact that we can only thus exclude an 
unsound one. Scepticism itself is a philosophy, and 
if not a religion, at least a solution of religious ques- 
tions, a prolific scource of belief and conduct. There 



\6 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

is no escape from opinions, inferences, actions, save 
in sterility. Deserts alone are free from vegetation. 
The fertile field is occupied ; if not by this, then by 
that ; if not by seemly, then by unseemly growth. 
We can hide ourselves from the search of thought in 
bestiality alone ; nor here completely, for man has 
never yet sunk so low but that religion has perco- 
lated down to him, petrified upon, him ; has never 
hidden himself so close in animalities but that some 
pinching witchcraft, some biting superstition, some 
stinging fear has found him out, and robbed him of 
repose. As, then, there is no alternative, and philos- 
ophy we must have, let us have a sober and sound 
one ; let us face questions we cannot escape, and 
struggle at the solution of problems that inlock our 
own lives. The confession of Huxley, in his lecture, 
" On the Basis of Physical Life," that he escapes the 
materialism of his own views only through the scep- 
ticism, the nihilism of Hume, is sad and pitiful. 
Having built up with much pleasure, patience and 
ingenuity his system, and retiring a little to look at 
it, it assumes, like some demoniac deity, such a dire 
and threatening aspect toward man and mankind 
that the philosopher is compelled to say, and to find 
relief in saying : " After all, what do we know of this 
terrible ' matter,' except as a name for the unknown 
and hypothetical cause of states of our own conscious- 
ness ? And what do we know of that 'spirit' over 
whose threatened extinction by matter a great lamen- 
tation is arising, like that which was . heard at the 
death of Pan, except that it is also a name for an un- 
known and hypothetical cause, or condition, of states 



DEFENCE OF PHILOSOPHY. 1 7 

of consciousness ? In other words, matter and spirit 
are but names for the imaginary substrata of groups 
of natural phenomena. And what is the dire neces- 
sity and ' iron ' law under which men groan ? Truly, 
most gratuitously invented bugbears." Thus he 
builds his image, trembles before it, and strikes it to 
the dust again that he may fear it no longer. What 
we seem to know has so bad a look that he makes 
haste to remind us that after all we know nothing 
certainly. Like his master in philosophy, he seems 
to care little what becomes of his own work, if he can 
escape by its demolition the entire truth that called 
it into existence. He gives echo to these words of 
Hume : " If we take in hand any volume of Divinity, 
or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, Does 
it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity 
or number ? No. Does it contain any experimental 
reasoning concerning matter-of-fact and existence ? 
No. Commit it then to the flames ; for it can con- 
tain nothing but sophistry and illusion." How large 
a portion of Hume's own labors would be swept, under 
this rule, into the flames ! Those certainly on which 
the larger share of his fame rests. We have often 
taken pleasure in acknowledging the great sharpness 
and logical force of Hume as a metaphysician, but in 
this instance he seems to have felt the blind heat of 
that second Erigena who, in his eagerness to strike 
a toad with the snath of his scythe, forgot that the 
blade encircled his own neck, and, with one concen- 
trate, irate, successful blow, made an end of his ad- 
versary, and sent his own head rolling in the dust. 
How much of the liberty, the .courage, the physical 



1 8 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

good even, of the race has been due to this discarded 
line of thought, this philosophic and religious thought, 
which braces the mind to faith and heroism ! 

A second like reason for metaphysical inquiry is, 
that we thus put ourselves in the true line of progress. 
We unite the past to the present, and without retain- 
ing all, or rejecting all of its inquiries, complement 
and complete them by our own. There is an assump- 
tion in the physicists of the present day truly as- 
tonishing ; or rather, in that portion of them who 
represent the extreme tendencies of physical inquiry. 
They are disposed to set aside, in the most unhesita- 
ting and contemptuous way, all methods not identical 
with their own ; all conclusions whose premises and 
proofs lie out of their own field. Of this class, in dif- 
ferent degrees, are Draper, Maudsley, Huxley "Buckle, 
Spencer, Biichner. The temper of this school of 
physical investigation is not so much that wisdom is 
to die with them, as that wisdom has been born with 
them ; that inquiry hitherto has come to nothing ; 
that the roots of true knowledge strike into the past 
but one, two, or at the most three centuries deep ; 
that science is new — new in direction, new in method 
and in spirit ; antagonistic to the past, aggressive in 
the present, and ready to clutch, with a conquering 
hand, the future. Now what are the antecedent 
probabilities of the correctness of such an attitude? 
if these so self-assured spirits will allow us even to 
inquire into the general bearings of their claims 
before we make an unconditional surrender. If the 
mind of man has been absolutely and totally wrong 
up to a given moment, mistaking the proper subjects, 



DEFENCE OF PHILOSOPHY. 19 

the proper methods, the proper points of inquiry ; if 
it has congratulated itself on absurd conclusions, and 
delighted itself with pure chimeras ; if it has been in 
a dream, and seen things without substantial form or 
dependence ; if it has tickled its thoughts with con- 
jectures, and built its faith on figments ; what is the 
prospect that this same mind, so surprisingly acute 
and subtle, yet so perfectly self-deceived, has now, at 
once, as it were, waked up, hit on exactly the right 
theory, and caught truth in a trice, before she had 
time to say, With my permission? If a man never 
has told the truth, the fact is a narrow ground of 
faith that he is now speaking it. If the world has 
been all wrong and everywhere wrong, it would seem 
at least very problematical whether, in its latest ten- 
dency, it is perfectly right. It is a poor preparation 
for the growth of a tree to cut its roots just below the 
soil. If the milleniums past have done nothing for 
the world, it is probable that the years now passing 
are but another state and stage of dreaming, and that 
the vision before us has no other, no superior ground 
of belief, but rests on the mere fact that it is the last 
image on the screen of fancy. If it is not safe to 
suppose the great minds of the past all right, it is 
not more so to think them all wrong, hopelessly and 
-extravagantly wrong. Such a supposition cuts the 
rational life of the race midway, and leaves each moi- 
ety to wriggle in imbecility. We are, because they 
were, and what we are we owe, no less in spiritual 
and intellectual than in physical descent, to them. 
That view has, beyond all doubt, probability with it, 
which gathers the past into the present by sequence 



20 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

and growth, not by rejection simply ; that contem- 
plates with as much certainty and pleasure the 
strengthening cords of truth, gathering fibre after 
fibre of thought, and incorporating into themselves 
all historic, vigorous movements, as those with which 
it beholds the life of the world and its physical events, 
pouring down upon us from years beyond our human 
horizon. This obliteration of the past in human 
history; this beginning with 1900, or ; i6oo even, 
this contemptuous arrogance begotten of new ideas, 
simply shows that the mind is not yet familiar with 
its acquisitions, and that these, like new garments, 
cannot quietly subserve the purposes of service till 
they have met those of display. Philosophy and re- 
ligion are as old as the world, and we do not believe 
that science, the last born and petted progeny of time, 
will displace them. It is rather our problem to see 
how these great forces, these distinct lines of convic- 
tion, are to include the later agency, accepting its 
position under the elder agencies, and the three unite 
at once to restrict and enlarge each other — to define 
the fields of spiritual and physical forces, and to dis- 
cover the conditions of their interaction. 

A last reason to be urged, not against the scientific, 
but the exclusively scientific, spirit, is, that being a 
reactionary one, and that, too, against the knowledge 
most native to man himself, it first restricts and then 
debases thought, and, through it, character. This is 
no personal accusation against the materialist of to- 
day. A belief rarely reveals at once, in those who 
first present it, its mischievous relations to conduct. 
Philosophers use doctrines primarily as fruits and 



DEFENCE OF PHILOSOPHY. 21 

conditions of intellectual activity, and find strength 
and elasticity in them as a gymnast in his bars and 
rings, without much reference to their exact form or 
practical value. Not thus those who stand removed, 
by one or two circles, from the real centre of intel- 
lectual activity. They are chiefly affected by doc- 
trines in their relations to action, in the practical 
conclusions which flow from them. Much that is stim- 
ulating in the first instance is very stale at second- 
hand. The feast, as it progresses, has its redemptive 
features, but life has wholly passed from its next-day 
odors. The real value of a philosophy is best tested 
by the popular estimate of it, by the class that re- 
motely clutch at it, and do not so much rally under it 
as unfurl it on the march they are already making. 

In this more rernote and broader view, we see, that 
that physical bias Of inquiry which rejects metaphys- 
ics or wholly perverts them, cannot but be unfavor- 
able to character. Liberty and right, freedom and 
obligation, and hence the sense of power, opportunity, 
responsibility, which springs from these, are wholly 
overlooked or greatly modified by the materialistic ten- 
dency ; and thus man falls away from himself not less 
on the practical than the theoretical side. He accepts, 
as inevitable, the laws of physical evolution which 
are said to enfold him, and floats on — save as appetite, 
desire and passion give the lie to his faith, and impel 
him in the wrong direction. We shall never, on ac- 
count of our philosophies, require much less of our 
fellows than we do now — no false theory is able to 
baffle or turn aside the claims of self-interest ; but it 
may furnish an apology to the mind for not doing 



22 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

itself what it is indisposed to do. We shall excuse 
ourselves on grounds of philosophy which would not 
avail for others. Deny liberty, and resolve obligation 
into interest, and you have houghed the spiritual 
steeds, and left us to make a lame and foot-sore jour- 
ney in the paths of virtue. A man, in the growth 
of character, scarcely does more than he feels he can 
do and ought to do, and the power and the obligation 
issue out of our spiritual, not our physical, life — out 
of that which is higher, downward ; not out of that 
which is lower, upward. If one feel creeping all over 
and through him the close-knit connections of causa- 
tion, he must submit, or strike at once for manhood ; 
and the liberating blow of thought must spring from 
the thoughts themselves ; from the mind's belief in, 
and exercise of, its own strength. All in philoso- 
phy that removes, reduces, or disguises that in man 
which is most peculiar to him — all that submits him 
to the forces below him, necessarily lowers his esti- 
mate of himself, alters his entire relation to the world 
about him, and thus humbles character, whose emin- 
ence is found in freedom of conception and boldness 
of execution. If the sources .and resources of our life 
are all below us, the sweep of our vision will be quite 
different from that which belongs to us, if these are 
chiefly above us. One's absolute position may seem 
much the same if he stands on the last round of a 
ladder that stretches below him, or the first round of 
one that rises above him, but tendencies and incen- 
tives are every way different. On both sides, then, 
are we urged to patient, sound philosophy ; by what 
it gives us, and by what we lose without it. 



DEFENCE OF PHILOSOPHY. 23 

It remains only in the present lecture to mark out 
the direction of our inquiry. We are to speak of 
philosophy in its relations to science and religion. 
The point of departure is the mind ; but it is not our 
object to give a systematic statement of its powers, 
but only that limited presentation necessary to the 
general apprehension of its own phenomena, and 
their bearing on science and religion. As the mind is 
the instrument of all knowledge, and must, therefore,, 
by the form and certainty of its own action, determine 
the nature and validity of that which is known, it 
is especially fit to commence our inquiries with the 
instrument itself of inquiry, and to be first sure of the 
faculties at our disposal, the ground of our faith in 
them, and the fields which they cover. Moreover, 
nothing can be more certainly known to the mind 
than the mind itself, since whatever else is revealed 
by any perception, reflection, intuition, the act of 
knowledge is also disclosed by which this outside 
matter finds admission. The knowing stands an 
omnipresent condition of the thing known, and it is 
well, therefore, to start, if possible, with this perpetual 
ground, these sources of knowledge, rather than lose 
ourselves at once in the outside, objective inquiries 
which are offered to us. 

Again, the mind lies central between the physical 
and the spiritual realms : it is allied to both, and is 
the only common term between them. A knowl- 
edge of our powers, therefore, is a preparation for 
an outward movement toward the visible things of 
science, and an inward movement toward the invis- 
ible things of religion. Nor shall we find these so 



24 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

far apart as many are willing to regard them. 
Science by no means deals with the visible, the tan- 
gible, alone ; it is rather constantly hovering over 
these with conceptions as invisible, intangible, as 
much beyond the verification of the senses as any 
which belong to the realm o: • eligious faith ; while, 
on the other hand, those doctrines which pertain to 
the soul, its constitution, immortality, and spiritual 
dependencies, are constantly descending into the 
world of facts, with phenomena as coarse, palpable, 
cognizable, as any presented in the laboratory. Now 
the rationalizing of facts, the taking of them up into 
the region of abstract thought, into the systems of 
science, is a process as purely intellectual, as strictly 
dependent, for its apprehension and validity, on the 
laws of mind, as is the formation of any ethical doc- 
trine whatever, and its application to the conduct of 
daily life. We are, therefore, to inquire, first, into 
the powers of mind so far as to see what it is capable 
of doing, of knowing. Then, with the fields made 
accessible to us by its own activities before us, we 
are to consider the form and validity of its action 
in the physical sciences ; also the certainty and limits 
of its knowledge in these directions. There will thus 
arise those questions which pertain to the existence 
and nature of matter. 

The chief force of our critical argument will through- 
out be directed against materialism, because this is 
the fruit of the scientific tendency, and because it is 
especially congenial to the English and American 
mind. Idealism has hardly found a footing in any 
nation except the German, and is rapidly loosing 



DEFENCE OF PHILOSOPHY. 25 

hold there. English thought is far too gross, slug- 
gish, practical, to ascend into this thin region of pure 
speculation so long as it can graze in the spiritually 
quiet and physically rich fields of materialism. It 
would be contending with an almost imaginary evil 
for us to throw up defences against idealism. Only 
a few erratic, nimble dilletanti of the philosophic 
world ever traverse these regions ; and these, like 
antlered deer, would readily overleap the barriers, no 
matter how high we might raise them. Materialism, 
on the other hand, marshals, in its rear, the unlet- 
tered masses, and is formidable as much by the 
blindness as by the sight that is in it. 

Having contemplated the laws of the mind's action 
in the physical world, we shall do the same in the in- 
tellectual world in the study of its own phenomena 
and activities. We shall dwell on the new laws of 
thought here present, and new limits here disclosed. 
We shall then consider the two fields in their rela- 
tions to each other — the nature of life and of mind, 
and the scope and character of our knowledge con- 
cerning them. We shall, thus be prepared to con- 
template the mind's activity in that central, religious 
conception — the conception of a God ; the forms of 
this activity, their relations to us, and our knowledge 
of them ; and, in conclusion, to discover the connec- 
tions of science, philosophy and religion ; the nature 
of the mind's activity in each ; the order and the dan- 
gers incident to the growth of knowledge. If we 
shall thus do even a little to lessen the colliding of 
knowledge with knowledge ; of investigation with in- 
vestigation ; and, above all, if we shall save our faith 

2 



26 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

from that jostle and strain which loosen its hold on so 
many minds, we shall think our labors well bestowed. 
The necessary breaking up and modification of belief 
in the progress of truth are often destructive when 
they should be rather reconstructive. The resistance 
which makes of progress an earthquake, as notable 
for the ruin it occasions as for the new conditions 
of life it furnishes, should be laid aside ; and free 
inquiry provoked, sought for, disarmed by the easy 
admission of its truths. When every honest, earnest 
mind presents a point for the discharge of the electric 
fire of every new theory, it will no longer generate 
thunder-bolts, and will cease to shatter, with sudden 
shock, the belief of the unwary. The skill of an in- 
tellectual life is found in getting from the old to the 
new without the loss of either : from the old to the 
new in government without the waste and overthrow 
of revolution ; from the old to the new in social cus- 
toms and order without the shock of aroused preju- 
dices, the bitterness of scarcasm, the irritation of 
unwelcome truth ; from the old to the new in faith, 
without schism, the falling back of this branch into 
rapid decay, the putting forward of that into precipi- 
tate progress ; from the old to the new in philoso- 
phy without the irreparable loss of complete rejection, 
or the irreparable loss of unlimited acceptance, with- 
out leaping wholly off from the sure foundations of 
1 the past on to other foundations of merely fanciful 
strength, that have not been tested by the storms of 
many centuries. 



LECTURE II. 

PRIMITIVE IDEAS J THEIR RELATION TO KNOWLEDGE, 

The point about which the conflicts in philosophy, 
and more especially between the philosophical and 
scientific tendencies, the metaphysical and the physi- 
cal methods, are becoming increasingly warm, is that 
of intuitive ideas. Does the mind, as mind, inde- 
pendently bring anything to the explanation of the 
world about it ; or, are the initiations of thought and 
the forms of thought alike from without ? This is the 
pregnant question, which, put in a great variety of 
ways, is seeking an answer. Spencer laboriously han- 
dles it through many pages. Mill returns to it again 
and again. It is the germinant point of the philosophy 
of the unconditioned, as urged by Hamilton and Man- 
sell. It reappears in every treatise on ethics, and a 
negative answer is assumed by every disciple of Pos- 
itive Philosophy, and every physicist who fancies 
himself solving problems of mind as well as of mat- 
ter. Nor is this discussion unworthy of the attention 
that is bestowed upon it. The bias of our philosophy, 
of our thinking, must be received at this point ; and 
the answer given by us to this question will discover 
at once our lines and our methods of investigation, 
and settle the general character of the results to be 
attained by us. To broach this inquiry clearly, in the 
outset, therefore, and answer it squarely, is necessary 
to perspicuity and soundness of method ; since some 



28 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

answer to it, explicit or implicit, will be lurking in 
our entire discussion. No man ever ridiculed meta- 
physics, and then proceeded to handle any system of 
thought, to present any conceptions whatever with 
breadth, who did not plainly involve in the treatment 
this very point — the source and authority of our' 
general ideas. Those ideas have been variously 
designated, each name striving to seize upon some- 
thing in their connection with the mind, or with 
other ideas, peculiar to them and fitted to define 
them. They have been called intuitive ideas — that 
is, ideas directly seen by the mind ; ideas furnished 
neither by the senses nor by reflection. They have 
been termed innate ideas, thereby expressing their 
independence of experience and priority. to it; hav- 
ing the same end in view, they been spoken of as a 
priori ideas ; and, in reference to their power to bring 
order, cast light, into all our conceptions, they have 
been designated as formative, regulative, rational, gen- 
eral ideas. We need merely to understand exactly 
what we are seeking for, under these various appel- 
lations, to wit : notions, which owe their origin — fit- 
ting occasions being given in experience — exclusively 
to the mind, to its penetrative, explanatory, power ; 
its intuitive, rational, comprehensive grasp. The one 
philosophy claims, that, in the last analysis, the mind 
furnishes the notions in the light of which it sees 
and understands the external world ; brings with it its 
own intellectual solvents, reducing matter, otherwise 
opaque, to a transparent and penetrable form. The 
other philosophy asserts, that all thought, knowledge, 
are exclusively the product of matter in its action 



PRIMITIVE IDEAS, ETC. 29 

upon mind — the ripple marks left by the restless 
waves of physical forces ; that our settled convictions 
are but the worn path-ways in which repeated per- 
ceptions and sensations have passed along, lining out 
for us the roads of intellectual travel. Here we take 
issue, and affirm unhesitatingly, the mind does furnish 
ideas, and those, too, the essential ones which give 
order, system, reason, to all its actions. 

Before passing to the proof, let us see something 
of the relations of this assertion. It raises a conclu- 
sive issue against materialism. If the mind originates 
any portion of its own ideas ; if it originates the 
most necessary and characteristic portion of them, 
there is in it an independent source of power. It is 
not a harp cunningly played on by winds that know 
not the skill that is in them. We do not say that 
there are no other satisfactory proofs against materi- 
alism, but that these intuitions, if established, must 
afford a final and complete refutation. Thus all mate- 
rialists signal the character of their philosophy by 
firing a gun at this citadel of thought ; or, if unable 
to see the exact locality of its bristling works, into 
the mist supposed to contain it. All other activities 
of mind, aside from the intuitions, are so immedi- 
ately consequent on perception as to give color to ma- 
terialism. Without the recognition of these notions, 
the problem would stand somewhat thus : Certain 
physical facts are invariably connected with certain 
mental facts ; the last have no known existence aside 
from the first, or otherwise than as shaped by them. 
How the one springs from the other we know not, 
but our universal experience teaches us that they are 



30 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

inseparable. An open eye, an aroused optic nerve, 
bring perception ; the play of nervous influence or 
energy in the brain is an occasion or ground of 
thought. On these and like conditions exclusively 
are intellectual phenomena present to us. The as- 
sertion thus becomes easy, natural and plausible, that i 
the two are so far identical that they may be regarded 
as opposite sides of the same thing, and that we are 
at least justified, practically, in identifying the facts of 
mind with what all must admit to be their inseparable 
conditions, and with what may be their exact equiv- 
alents. Nor does the fact, that the inside look of 
thought is so distinct from its outside, physical, ac- 
companiments — the sensation so different from the 
nervous modifications in the organ which produce it, 
present so formidable an obstacle to materialism as at 
first sight it seems to, since this is a difficulty which 
presses with more or less weight on all theories. 
The idealist, to escape it, makes a stroke in the op- 
posite direction as bold and destructive as that of 
the materialist, and affirms that exterior facts are il- 
lusory — mere facts of mind projected outward ; their 
true nature disguised by the ease and rapidity with 
which the mind evokes and unfolds them. Nor is 
the realist, accepting both mind and matter, much 
better off, theoretically, in his handling of the two 
classes of facts, physical and intellectual. He has 
simply, in confessed ignorance of their real depend- 
ence, to hold them apart, to cage them separately, lest 
the one shall devour the other. Fancy two rooms, 
wholly unlike, apparently remote from each other, 
and whose relation in space to each other we cannot 



PRIMITIVE IDEAS, ETC. 3 1 

discover : the one dark, subterranean ; the other light, 
aerial. The transpiring of certain events, known by 
touch alone in the one, keep exact pace and time 
with striking appearances in the other, known by 
sight only. We transfer ourselves from one to the 
other, we know not how, and find this dependence 
fixed, uniform, unchangeable. What conjectures 
should we bring to the solution of this relation of de- 
pendence ? How should we be baffled and perplexed 
by the problem, each more strong to overthrow the 
conclusions of his neighbor than to maintain his own ! 
Such distinct chambers are the body and the mind — 
the opaque casement of the brain, and the wide, light, 
expansive realm of consciousness ; such diverse facts 
are those that transpire unheeded under flesh and bone 
in the eye and ear and skull, and those which flash 
vividly and spontaneously out in the mind itself, alive 
either to truth or to the cheerful visions of fancy. 

Suppose the controversy thus standing between the 
idealist, who uncovers his high attic toward heaven 
and watches the meteors of thought ; the materialist, 
who retreats to his earth-enclosed chamber, and makes 
what cheer he can with furnace-light, glowing cruci- 
ble, and sulphurous fumes ; and the realist, who visits 
both apartments and is not altogether at home in 
either : suppose it now to be discovered that what 
transpires in the mind is not throughout in perfect 
dependence on matter, on sensations, single or reit- 
erated, but that the initiatory movement of knowl- 
edge is from above, while that given from beneath 
only serves as raw material : suppose that actions 
that were thought to be synchronous, and thus pro- 



32 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

nounced identical — identical as read from their phys- 
ical side by the materialist, identical as read from 
their intellectual side by the idealist, are discovered 
to be reciprocal ; the initiative passing now to this 
extreme, now to that, according to the phenomena be- 
fore us ; in sensation, the line of force setting inward 
toward the mind ; in comprehension, outward from the 
mind ; and do we not see, at once, that a new aspect 
is given to the whole problem ? Establish here, in 
this line of action, the initiation of mind from above, 
and is not the materialist put to rout ? — establish there 
the initiation of matter from below, and is not the 
idealist silenced ? In each field, still clinging to the 
figure, in each compartment, must be discovered an 
alien force entering from the other, or the thinker will 
inevitably make those forces which are most familiar to 
him, which are for him always initiative, the efficient, 
primary, sole forces, first to the oversight, and, at 
length, to the loss of all other. In the intuitions, 
then, we trust to establish, as against materialism, a 
clear, undeniable commencement of action by the 
mind itself — of action which makes knowledge to be 
what it is. 

But not only is the independence of the mind 
vindicated by these ideas, its nature and office are 
disclosed. Mind alone is a rationalizing agent ; that 
is, one which discerns reasons, relations, inherent 
dependencies, in the facts before it, and which con- 
sciously constructs its own actions on like intellectual 
connections. It is the very nature, the exclusive 
nature and office of reason, to see and employ the 
principles of law and order which bring phenomena 



PRIMITIVE IDEAS, ETC. 33 

out of chaos, out of irrationality, unintelligibility, and 
make of them things to be understood, thought about, 
explained, logically, intellectually digested. Organic 
products are food to the physical man, come under 
its powers of separation and appropriation. Things 
viewed in the light of ideas, into which the order and 
relations of ideas have been suffused, are food to the 
mind ; and these first conceptions, which are not 
things, but the conditions of things — the conditions 
of their existence and intelligible form, it is the offict 
of the mind to furnish. If the place, time, casual 
connections of events could be assigned them by 
themselves, could be directly found in them and 
learned from them, then, indeed, would mind and 
matter be identical, and this deepest distinction of 
the universe be obliterated. If the physical world 
puts reason — for it is full of reason, a product of 
rationality — into itself, its events, then is it mind, for 
this is the distinctive feature of mind ; and the first 
step of our philosophy leads us to the obliteration of 
the lines of division between agents and the things 
acted upon, between comprehension and the thing 
comprehended, between mind and matter : that is, to 
a confusion than which none could be greater to our 
present modes of thought. If, then, such primitive 
notions as we maintain are established, it will doubt- 
less, at once, be admitted by you, that they spring 
from that peculiar power of the mind by which it is 
mind, the power of using in a rational way, handling 
intelligently the facts before it ; the power of organ- 
izing the intellectual world, and making it distinct 
from every other. It will also be seen — and more 



34 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

quickly and easily seen by hastening on, than by 
pausing at this stage of our inquiry fully to establish 
it — that these ideas define our knowledge, its general 
directions and limits, and thus are preliminary to a 
separation and classification of the provinces of 
thought, the several forms of inquiry. An initiatory 
idea or ideas afford the frame-work, the general lines 
and grounds of every investigation. Thus the char- 
acter and validity of our knowledge are seen in the 
nature and certainty of the notions which have guided 
us in its pursuit. It is, then, to our purpose, in map- 
ping out knowledge, lining off its scientific, philoso- 
phic and religious territory, to start with those intui- 
tions which are respectively the land-marks of each. 
The proof for the presence in the mind of these reg- 
ulative conceptions we shall pass rapidly, striving 
rather to present, than impregnably to establish, our 
premises, believing that the later proof of their 
fruitful character, of the light they bring, the expla- 
nation they afford, is at once the most pleasing and 
powerful. Let the seed grow, and we shall see its 
character without minute dissection ; radical and 
plumule will separate and disclose themselves as the 
living impulse reaches them. 

It would seem natural to enumerate, to exhaust- 
ively state, these intuitions of time, space, existence, 
cause, before we urge, even briefly, the proof on which 
they rest. As we shall have occasion to do this later, 
preparatory to indicating the leading divisions of 
thought, we will not anticipate the effort at this 
point. Any of them, as those mentioned above, may 
be brought to mind in giving distinctness to the ar- 



PRIMITIVE IDEAS, ETC. 35 

gument on which all rest. First, we say, no antece- 
dent improbability attaches to the assertion of their 
existence. It is a fundamental principle of the in- 
ductive, the truly scientific method, that we are to 
come to no department with anticipations, preposses- 
sions, disinclinations ; that we are simply to inquire * 
what is, seeking for it where it is, and rejecting 
nothing which seems to be, on the ground of unlike- 
ness to previous experience. In no direction are 
this simplicity and fairness of observation and inter- 
pretation more called for than in mental science. 
Invincible opinion, inveterate prejudice, I may say, 
is often brought to questions, which, as lying in to- 
tally new directions, should be opened and pursued 
with a readiness to reach very unexpected results. 
Our antecedent power to decide what is to be expected 
in a department is so very small, that any use of it is 
much more likely to mislead and embarrass us than 
to furnish us valuable hints. We say, then, that 
there are no antecedent grounds of conviction against 
the presence of intuitive ideas worthy of a moment's 
consideration. No field is more novel, more unlike 
all others, than this of Mental Philosophy ; and we 
should wait till we are fairly in it before we conject- 
ure what we are to find there. Is this the method of 
physicists ? Quite the reverse. They insist on in- 
duction, yet often come to philosophy, with no inten- 
tion of starting their inquiries within its own field, 
and there slowly building up and establishing their 
conclusions. They are not philosophers, when they 
philosophise, but physicists still : their entire think- 
ing remains saturated with physical conceptions which 



36 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

they are, unconsciously to themselves, determined to 
foist upon the new facts before them. Fixed, phys- 
ical connections are all they are familiar with, and 
all they are disposed to allow of; and with one of 
the most settled a-priori looks that ever haunted a 
scientific or philosophic visage, they confront the task 
they have assigned themselves, of subduing under 
material laws — conquering for physical science, the 
phenomena of mind. To this effort, the spontaneous, 
original powers of mind, finding chief expression in 
intuitive ideas, are the great obstacle, and hence to 
these, there is an antecedent, deep-rooted repugnance. 
The physicist, distinctively so, so by preeminence, 
attacks inevitably, by instinct and unconscious pre- 
dilection, every claim of original, spontaneous power 
in mind. Now, we say, that this whole crusade 
against a-priori ideas rests itself on an a-priori ground 
of the most untenable, possible kind. Honest induc- 
tion cannot recognize the fitness of those pre-judg- 
ments ; it rather declares, that in passing such a 
border as that which separates matter from mind, 
every pre-judgment should be laid aside, and very 
new and diverse facts anticipated. That is a perverse 
a-priori use of thought, to say beforehand, that no 
intuitive ideas are to be found in the mind. One of 
the surest ways of evincing a distorted a-priori bias 
is this of attacking, in an unqualified, general way, 
a-priori conceptions and arguments. These assaults 
are themselves inevitably of an a-priori character, and 
that, too, in an insufficient and false way. We say, 
then, to the extreme physicist — and we are speaking 
of no others — give us induction, but give us real, 



PRIMITIVE IDEAS, ETC. 37 

honest induction, that which is made on the ground 
gone over, and reaches its results from what is there 
found. Slip the sandals from your feet as you enter 
philosophy, for this is holy ground — that is, ground 
not to be travelled over in exactly the same coarse 
way as that already traversed : the mind is not to be 
reduced in crucibles, nor snipped up with the nippers 
of the anatomist. Absolve your thoughts from old 
associations, turn inward your vision, and, believe us, 
there are other learners than those whose eyes feast 
on rocks, and linger lovingly on skeletons. 

We invoke a fair field, an open way for philosophy, 
and fling back the denial of a-priori ideas as itself 
hasty, unfounded, a-priori. But, it may be asked, if 
these intuitions are so fundamental in mind, how does 
the physicist himself proceed without them ? He 
does not proceed without them. Some of them he 
theoretically rejects, and practically employs ; some 
steal into his service unbeknown to him ; and some 
he knowingly uses and fallaciously explains. This is 
our second consideration in making way for proof; 
the untenable attitude of the materialist in his denial 
of original intuitions in the mind. As an example of 
these regulative notions, momentarily employed, and, 
at long intervals, formally rejected, we instance cause 
and effect. Materialism can do npthing with this 
notion, can make nothing of it ; and the physicist, 
therefore, when he so far becomes the philosopher as 
to discuss the question at all, resolves cause and 
effect into simple antecedence. This is the conclu- 
sion of Mill, of Spencer, of all who break ground 
in philosophy in behalf of simple physics. Indeed, 



38 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

what other position is possible to mere science ? The 
causes that underlie phenomena are never seen, 
heard, felt : it is to account for what is seen, heard, 
felt, that they are invoked — invoked by the mind 
alone. Causes are always and forever below the 
surface, out of sight, beyond the touch, and are- 
brought forward to account for, to explain, to enable 
us to understand what is above the surface, in the 
eye, or under the hand. I hear a sound : my thought 
explains it, not by the mere fact that a steam-valve 
has been opened in the distance, but by the further 
belief that there has been a transfer of force by wave- 
motion through the air to my ear. Now this force 
no man has ever heard, handled, in any way directly 
reached by the senses. It is of hypothetical, mental 
origin, brought in to explain what is seen, felt or 
heard. Materialism, therefore, denying that the mind 
furnishes anything in the apprehending process, knows 
not what to make of this notion of a force, of a cause 
actively present in phenomena, and momentarily giv- 
ing rise to them. Its only resource is to deny the 
validity of the idea, and reduce causation to simple 
antecedence. The valve opens, the air moves, the 
ear hears ; but there is no common term of force 
which unites the three. 

Nothing could be more at war with the practical 
attitude, the working conceptions of science, than 
this, its theoretical conclusions. Science is full of 
the notion of force, of causation, from top to bottom, 
and its investigations cannot proceed without it. 
Make of its connections, mere connections in time, 
and there is not more difference between the close- 



PRIMITIVE IDEAS, ETC. 39 

wrought cable and its impression in the sand than 
between scientific results as they now are, and as 
they would be under this view. Attraction, cohe- 
sion, what are they to the mind but forces that per- 
vade space and matter, and by instantaneous effi- 
ciency handle the orbs of a solar system, or the motes 
in the summer air ? Are these figments ? Then is 
science a figment, a cunning texture of conceits, a 
waking dream. Force is nothing, unless the notion 
of causation is valid ; since this necessity of the mind 
to refer appearances to efficient agencies back of 
them, gives rise to the conception of force — force 
everywhere at work to occasion, account for, and 
order phenomena. Science is full of this notion of 
force, mechanical, crystalline force, electric force, 
chemical force, heat force, and, latest of all, thought 
force, and the correlation and equivalence of forces. 
Yet, if the intuitive notion of cause and effect cannot 
stand, neither can this ingenious scientific structure 
which rests upon it. If there are no causes, then 
there are no forces. If there is no soundness in this 
first inference of the mind by which it puts force, 
super-sensual, intangible force under phenomena, 
then there is no substance in those elaborate con- 
ceptions by which it expounds the mechanical, chem- 
ical, vital facts of the world. 

Moreover, this denial of the notion of causation is 
suicidal to materialism. If phenomena have no other 
connection than one in time, the facts of mind cannot 
be otherwise dependent on those of matter than chron- 
ologically. Hence, thought and feeling, diverse in 
form from brain action, and in no way the fruit of it, 



V 

40 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

cannot be* equivalent to it, however constantly they 
may accompany each other. Materialism destroys 
itself, if it admits causation as an intuitive notion, 
since the mind then becomes the seat of indepen- 
dent, authoritative interpretation. It destroys itself 
if it denies causation, since all things then fall apart. 
All things have necessarily an independent, and an 
equally independent, existence ; mental and physical 
facts in regard to each other, not less than physical 
facts among themselves. 

While some regulative ideas, like this of cause and 
effect, are theoretically denied, and practically em- 
ployed by materialism, others are tacitly assumed, 
quietly taken by physicists, and used unbeknown to 
themselves and others. Of this class is the notion ' 
of resemblance. We do not open the discussion 
here, whether this is or is not an intuitive notion. 
We so claim it. It is by comparing one series of 
sensations with another, that Spencer, the latest and 
most generally accepted philosopher of materialism, 
reaches the notions of space and time. He furtively 
seizes upon this notion, gives it no explanation, does 
not even think that it needs an explanation, and by 
means of it arrives at other intuitions which he uses 
as further relays to bear him on his way. If, however, 
the idea of resemblance is denied him, under which 
these comparisons take place, and these alleged gen- 
eralizations are reached, he is at least thrown back 
another step, which must be first established before 
his reasonings can be brought to bear. Surrepti- 
tiously availing himself of one notion, he is able to 
initiate his intellectual activity — to get his thought- 



PRIMITIVE IDEAS, ETC. 4 1 

process in motion ; and, by a little confusion of analy- 
sis, to bring forth, as the boasted product of his mental 
jugglery, those few notions whose presence he is wil- 
ling to admit. This is the third method belonging 
to the physicist in his treatment of regulative ideas. 
Some he denies ; some he overlooks, and yet uses in 
reaching others ; and some, as those of space and 
time, he feels the necessity of allowing, but presents 
them as the fruit of generalizations. Now what is 
generalization ? It is an act of abstraction, by which 
we consider a quality or relation belonging to many 
things without considering any one of the things to 
which it attaches. Thus the flavor, known as sweet, 
found to exist in many things, is at length designated 
under a word which covers the quality with no refer- 
ence to anything which possesses it. Spencer claims 
that the notions of space and time only express certain 
relations which are found to belong to many things in 
common. I can move my hand, backward and for- 
ward, over the desk before me, and thus secure a 
series of sensations which I can repeat and reverse 
at pleasure. I find the same true of many other 
series of perceptions : as when I slide this index 
across my finger, or when I slowly turn my eyes from 
one part of the room to another, and then restore 
them to their first position. This relation of indiffer- 
ent, permanent succession, by which sensations can 
be repeated at pleasure in a given order, or reversed 
in their order, attaching as it does to many things, 
gives rise, says Spencer, to the word space, by which 
we designate this fact, common to much of our expe- 
rience. On the other hand, some sensations have a 



42 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

fixed order which cannot be retraced. The day ad- 
vances, and we may follow its various grades of light, 
its series of events, but cannot reverse them, or renew 
them at pleasure. Our thoughts, in conversation and 
in speech, move onward, but do not remain to be gone 
over a second time, or to be followed back to their 
commencement. Here is a second, fixed relation, 
which a share of our experiences have to each other, 
and this is designated as time. 

This account, now compactly given, when fully 
presented, and skilfully enforced, seems very plaus- 
ible. Indeed, it so closely approaches the truth as 
not to be easily distinguished from it. Yet, the error 
is the old one of antecedence, so often expressed 
under the image of the cart and the horse. Which 
of two ideas contains the other, draws after it the 
other, is, again and again, the grand question of 
philosophy. In the case before us, does the notion 
of relation go before and give rise to that of time ? — 
or, does the notion of time give rise to that of rela- 
tion ? Says materialism, the first is true ; says intui- 
tive philosophy, the second is true. Which is most 
specific ; time, space, or the idea of relation ? Evi- 
dently time and space, since both of these, together 
with many other connections, are included under the 
idea of relation. Now which is, by generalization, 
taken from the other : the more general from the 
less general — that is, relation from time ; or the less 
general from the more general — that is, time from 
relation ? Plainly, the first. We do not arrive at 
the specific sweet of honey from the general notion 
of sweetness, but reach the general notion of sweet- 



* PRIMITIVE IDEAS, ETC. 43 

ness from this and many other specific examples of 
it. Thus, we do not derive time, a specific relation, 
from the general idea of relation ; but relation in gen- 
eral from time, space, casual connection, each and all 
specific cases under it. We must, therefore, know 
time, space, cause and effect, antecedently as kinds 
of relation, before we can reach the yet more general 
idea of relation ; that is to say, we must know time, 
as we know sweetness, in a direct, concrete way, before 
we can make it the product of a generalization : that 
is to say again, all our knowledge must be specific, 
separate, intuitive, before it can become generic, gen- 
eral. Time and space must, therefore, be either sen- 
sations like hardness or softness, or mental intuitions, 
present in each case, before a process of generaliza- 
tion, which is one merely of separation and distinc- 
tion, can reach them. We cannot analyze gold out 
of a mineral that does not contain gold. No more 
can we generalize time out of a mental content that 
is not seen to involve it. 

This brings us to the very pith of the discussion. 
If the product we are to deal with is wholly one of 
sensation, if the mind is to add nothing to it, cast no 
new light upon it from another source, then a process 
of generalization, that is, of analysis and separation, 
can furnish nothing but distinct, sensational qualities, 
as hard, soft ; bright, dim ; sweet, sour ; since these 
alone are our coarse staple to be reflectively worked 
up. Time, then, is a sensation, or it cannot be 
evolved from sensations. Relations, conditions, one 
and all, imply some definite method of viewing the 
subject ; and this definite method or form, this con- 



44 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

trolling, regulative idea, is not a matter of sensation, 
but something furnished by the mind in view of its 
own ends. Suppose, for instance, with Spencer, that 
we could have gone through with the successive 
events of an hour, and have had no idea of time, we 
should then have taken no step towards such an idea ; 
we should have been no better off at the close than 
at the commencement of our experience. A second, 
a third, a fourth hour, used in exactly the same way, 
would carry us no further. Either at the close of the 
first hour, we must have observed this relation of 
succession and grasped it, at least incipiently, con- 
cretely as one of time, or we would be no nearer to it 
than at the outset. And who does not see that it is 
by rising out of the sensations as sensations, and tak- 
ing a synthetic, intellectual attitude toward them, 
that we get the conditions under which the mind 
flashes on them this conception of time. Moreover, 
this conception, come when it may, comes instanta- 
neous and complete. It is not made up of parts, 
compounded of ingredients, fabricated of odds and 
ends of thought. It has a most specific, simple, pri- 
mary character, and thus, like all such ideas, must 
come at once, come directly, find admission through 
some open, spiritual sense, as color, or taste, or sound 
enter the precincts of the mind through a physical 
sense. A thing is ultimate, single, simple, on this 
ground alone, that a direct, final faculty discloses it, 
and time and space, as primary relations, must be 
referred to a specific cognition of reason, or of the 
senses. As time and space, ultimate conceptions, 
are not sensations, they must be intuitions : as we do 



PRIMITIVE IDEAS, ETC. 45 

not see them, or taste them, or touch them, we must, 
by the insight of a spiritual eye, discern them. We 
must, with the subtlety of a rational sense, grasp their 
imponderable forms, and furnish them, the moulds of 
thought : time, under whose silent, eternal arches, 
measuring their progress, flow all events ; space, • 
beneath whose open concave all the creations of 
time are poured out in palpable, visible form, as 
waters, escaping their cavernous bed, glance for a 
little in the light, and are gone again. Thus by 
denial and refutation do we prepare the way for the 
positive argument, establishing the mind's independ- 
ent, penetrative action in handling the material of 
thought presented by the world about us. 

A first direct reason we offer for an acceptance of an 
intuitive element in our intellectual processes, is, that 
all careful and discriminating analysis yields it. So 
evidently is this true, that the notion of cause and 
effect, persistent and omnipresent as it is, is theoreti- 
cally N rejected, simply because its presence cannot 
otherwise be accounted for than by recognizing the 
existence and validity of an intuitive faculty. To 
escape the product, physical philosophy rejects the 
power, not considering that the only proof we have of 
any mental faculty is the results it yields. Liberty, 
right, the infinite, are treated in a like way. That 
is to say, these ideas are confessedly present, the 
phenomena of mind evidently yield them, analysis 
discloses them, yet they are termed fallacious, sym- 
bolical, pseudo- ideas. Now we know no other safe 
philosophy than that which accepts the uniform as- 
sertions of the mind simply because it makes them. 



46 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

We might as well reject color, though the eye sees 
it, as to reject causation, when the mind steadily, 
inevitably, affirms it. Many of those ideas called 
intuitive are even by the materialist allowed to be 
present, and then characterized as fanciful and ficti- 
tious, for no other reason than because they do not 
enter by avenues whose existence he has recognized. 
Of course, if there cannot be an intuitive faculty, 
then there cannot be intuitions. It would seem, 
however, to be novel proof, as directed against the 
existence of such a faculty, to assert, that seeming 
intuitions are illusory ; and illusory, not because they 
deceive us, but because we started our philosophy 
with the conviction that the power to which they are 
referred is no power. We are thus entitled to the 
full force of the admission, that materialism so far 
recognizes the correctness of that analysis which 
yields regulative ideas as to be ever striking at, and 
hunting down, these ghosts of thought, whose valid 
existence is nevertheless, denied. The man cannot 
sleep, a fever is on*-him, his flesh creeps, but he 
believes in no spirit ; no, not he. But; it will be said, 
the physicist denies the correctness of this analysis, 
even when such notions as that of space, admitted by 
him to be^real, are concerned. Here is the chosen 
ground of the physical school, and we are willing to 
meet them on it ; to put the question distinctly. 
Does the e'ye^ for instance, yield extension as a sen- 
sation, or. is' there, in every special judgment, a rous- 
ing of the mind to furnish and apply an element of 
its own, that of space ? Suppose a board, one foot 
square, to be placed before the eye two feet from it, 



PRIMITIVE IDEAS, ETC. 47 

is its extension determined by the eye as a sense- 
organ simply ? We say, No. Yet, this is a case as 
favorable to materialism as any that can be put. Sup- 
pose a second board, two feet square, to be placed 
two feet behind the first, and in exact line with it : 
the first will completely hide it. Withdraw the first, 
and the second will occupy precisely the same space 
on the retina as that covered by the first. There are 
here two extensions — the extension of the board for 
the time being looked at, and the extension of its 
imasre on the retina. Which of these is it that the 
materialist will affirm is directly known as a sensa- 
tion ? If he says the extension of the image on the 
retina, we make a double answer. In the first place, 
we, by mere outward sight, by direct sensation, know 
nothing whatever about the retina, not even its ex- 
istence, much less the size of the image upon it. In 
the second place, the two boards — and a thousand 
others m-iglit be so arranged that the same would be 
true of them— occupy exactly the same area on the 
retina, and,, therefore, should a'ppear of the same size, 
yet they do not. * If it now be said that the extension 
directly discerned is that of the board looked at, then 
we say, that this should be exactly known, whereas, 
in many cases, it is not, and cannot be. Let a series 
of boards be arranged, as we have intimated, under 
the open sky, in the space directly above the specta- 
tor, with long distances between thqm, and he will 
find himself utterly at fault in deciding on their di- 
mensions. The reason is obvious : sensation, as 
pure sensation, is thus separated from the conditions 
which ordinarily accompany it in forming a judg- 



48 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

ment, and it finds itself embarrassed in deciding on 
the dimensions of objects so located. Thus we ask 
each other, How large does the moon seem to you to 
be ? — and receive every variety of answer. If dimen- 
sions were a direct, complete product of sensation, as 
is color, then, like a given color, they should remain 
constant, distinct, uniform : their variable, indetermin- 
ate character show the presence of another element 
— that of constructive judgments. Moreover, if the 
size of an object is directly seen, how happens it 
that a convex mirror magnifies or distorts to the eye 
an object without affecting that object ? 

The true explanation is this : the mind, with the 
antecedent idea of space, is able to interpret varying 
sensations, which in themselves disclose nothing di- 
rectly of extension, so as to judge of the dimensions 
of bodies, and these judgments are all open to the 
errors and deceptions of peculiar circumstances, not 
included in our previous experience. Thus, with its 
notion of space, it can look at a painting as a perfectly 
plane surface, or, by a flash of insight as it were, open 
it up instantly into a landscape of great distances 
and innumerable objects. Everywhere will analysis 
yield something more than mere sensation. 

A second reason to be urged in behalf of these 
original strokes of power in the mind, is the fact, that 
it can thus begin to think in many directions. Sen- 
sations as sensations are complete ; reflection can 
add nothing to them. Bitter is bitter, and if one 
wishes to increase his knowledge, he has only to 
taste again : reflection will not help him. Thought 
cannot grapple these complete, spherical sensations 



PRIMITIVE IDEAS, ETC. 49 

except by virtue of some relation to be established 
between them, such as one or many, here or there, 
now or hereafter, like or unlike. But each of these 
relations is specific under a distinct idea, and this idea- 
must be forthcoming. We cannot say that things are 
like or unlike, till we have compared them ; and we 
cannot compare them, till we have the notion of resem- 
blance. The mind might as well be a mirror, holding 
now one object, now another, as to be a mind, if it can 
do nothing more than hold phenomena, if it cannot, 
asking itself whether things are like or unlike, pro- 
ceed to see. Here, exactly, is our affirmation. The 
eye does not see things to be like or unlike, but pro- 
ceeds to see them ; that is, when the mind has sug- 
gested this direction to attention, the sight is so or- 
dered. We are asked, Were- the two horses alike ? 
and make answer, We did not observe. We saw, but 
did not see, because the antecedent idea of resem- 
blance was not then present to us. Now, as men are 
thinking in all directions — that is, combining sensa- 
tions, this fact shows the universal presence of spe- 
cific ideas or relations under which thought takes 
place. No other union by virtue of thought merely 
is possible. 

A third proof of the nature of this intuitive action 
is found in the character of the conclusions which 
rest exclusively upon it, when compared with those 
which arise from sensation. Mathematical lines and 
surfaces are secondary conceptions under the general 
idea of space. Hence the mind affirms some truths 
concerning them by direct insight. Of this nature is 
the following : Two straight lines parallel through 
3 



50 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

a portion of their extent, are parallel through their 
entire extent That the two bars on a railroad track 
can never meet if parallel and straight, is a fact 
which every rational mind sees to be necessarily 
true. Contrast it, for instance, with the strongest 
possible assertion resting on mere experience, and 
observe the difference. All crows are black. Put 
yourself on an unknown continent, would you direct 
a moment's attention to the question whether paral- 
lel lines should be found to meet ? Would you be 
any more than surprised at a flock of crows, a por- 
tion of which were brown, or gray, or white ? Yet 
Mill is compelled to put both of these conclusions on 
the same ground of authority, and therein signally 
refutes his philosophy. Geometry and Botany do 
not rest on the same basis of proof, and a theory that 
affirms that they do, is remarkable for audacity, if not 
for penetration. There is in the one, instantaneous 
insight ; in the other, slow perception : in the one, 
demonstrative conclusions rest on a single example ; 
in the other,, a probable conclusion follows many 
examples. 

These necessary convictions are scattered every- 
where, and can be accounted for only on the ground 
of an intuitive grasp of their unchangeable conditions. 
It is easy to conceive of causes that might break in 
on the order of nature in any direction. Immutable 
laws, so called by physicists, are no further immuta- 
ble than are the forces that give rise to them. Vary 
these, and change in those must follow. But the 
logical laws of thought, the geometric laws of space, 
are immutable in a far deeper sense. 'We can un- 



PRIMITIVE IDEAS, ETC. 5 I 

derstand no forces or causes that could modify them. 
They are the very frame-work of thought : break 
them up, and coherent thinking is gone ; while no 
change in the order and character' of mere events 
disturbs our contemplation of them. The mind as- 
serts itself, its own line and order of movement, in 
these necessary truths, and the blow which strikes 
them away falls on the intellectual life as one of 
syncope and dissolution. 

Further, these regulative ideas maintain their 
grounds, as do all theories, by the light and order 
they bring into our thinking — by the harmony and 
coalescence of facts under them. Nothing is lost. 
One half of the world of knowledge is not sacrificed 
to the other. We have science, and we have philos- ! 
ophy. On these, as joint foundations, religion is able « 
to rest. But this best and most complete proof can 
only appear in its full force as we proceed. 

We close the lecture with a brief enumeration of 
these regulative ideas, not being able to pause to 
justify each separately. The first of these is exist- 
ence. Existence and the idea, the thought of it, are 
quite distinct. This is not a sensation, but the 
mind's simplest act of explanation in reference to a 
sensation. But things are finite, divisible, and a 
second act of thought resolves them, under the no- 
tion of number, into one or more, according to the 
purpose and method of contemplation. We have 
twenty cattle, or one drove ; fifty sheep, or one flock ; 
as the mind chooses to regard them. Separate 
things are compared under the notion of resem- 
blance, as like or unlike, and thus they coalesce ' 



52 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

again in groups of the mind's own establishment — 
groups which depend wholly on the phase of resem- 
blance present to the thoughts. Marbles, granites, 
ores, may all be heaped together as minerals over 
against a pile of organic substances ; or may be 
parted in divisions among themselves as marbles, 
granites, ores. Thus innumerable lines of order, of 
synthetic thought, are shot through the chaos of 
many and diverse things. So far, in these three 
intuitions, we have the common ground of all being. 
Now comes a deep division : the stream parts, and 
the notion of space gives us one territory — that of 
physical facts, swept through by the one current ; 
and consciousness a second territory, occupied by the 
second current — that of intellectual facts. These two 
proceed in diverse form and method. The first has 
a second regulative idea — that of cause and effect. 
Under efficient, measured, unchangeable forces, pre- 
sent in the material world, its events progress with 
a strict, causal connection everywhere. In the sec- 
ond field of activity — the spiritual — we have the no- 
tion of liberty, the counterpart of causation, and of 
right and of beauty, which furnish the conditions and 
ground of liberty. Between these two forms of being, 
and common to them both, lies the intuitive idea of 
time. The same time — identically the same time — 
overlies physical and spiritual events. Finally, these 
finite events, flowing on in a double channel, lie over 
against the infinite, come from it, and are gathered 
into it, under it — are poised with it ; the infinite, the 
source and end of the finite, the finite the revelation 
of the infinite. 



PRIMITIVE IDEAS, ETC. 53 

These ideas admit of the following presentation : 

Existence, 

Number, 

Resemblance, 

\ f Consciousness, 

Space, I I Libe 

r f Tlrae > 1 Right, 

Cause > J Ueauty, 

The Infinite. 
Thus starting with existence in its feeblest, finite 
form, we return to existence in its fullest infinite 
form. As ocean currents are sundered on the head- 
land of a continent, and skirt its divergent coasts — 
or as they overlie and underlie each other in the 
same seas, with diverse directions and diverse tem- 
peratures, yet all spring from the same great sources, 
and feel the same general momentum, so material 
facts and spiritual facts part to the right and the left, 
or above and below, in the fulfillment of one end, 
under the propulsion of one purpose, together ex- 
pressing and fulfilling the plan of God. 

The above division of regulative ideas goes far 
to answer the inquiry, Why these and no others ? 
They cover, and completely cover, the entire field 
of phenomena, and, as broad as the knowledge of the 
mind, show themselves to be its frame-work. No 
department of thought being omitted, these ideas, 
with those secondary ones involved in them, are suf- 
ficient for all the purposes of the mind, unless it can 
be shown, that within these bounds some irresolvable 
link of judgments has been overlooked. We have not 
the ambition to try to establish, that there can be no 



54 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

other regulative notions, but only that these notions 
are actual and sufficient for all the objects of thought. 
Grant us these, and the map of the mind is before 
us. We see at once the themes which can occupy it, 
the ideas under which all its judgments are con- 
structed. It is something for reason to thus mark t 
out its own bounds ; and it ought not to be urged 
against these results that they do not explain to us 
why these limits, and no others, are set to the mind. 



LECTURE III. 

SPACE THE FIELD, CAUSATION THE LAW, OF PHYS- 
ICAL FACTS. 

We closed our last lecture with an enumeration of 
the fixed or regulative ideas of the mind. As much 
that we are yet to say will depend for its correctness 
on the correctness and completeness of this list, it 
would seem in order, to take up, one by one, these 
ideas, and to establish their independent, primitive 
character, that the mind brings them to its experi- 
ence for its apprehension, and does not evolve them 
from that experience ; in other words, that they are 
not to be regarded as products in the mind of outside 
influences, but as original perceptions of the mind, 
by which it becomes mind, a thinking, comprehend- 
ing power. As, however, this separate consideration 
and defence of these ideas have been entered on by 
us elsewhere, and would now greatly delay us, we 
shall assume the correctness of the enumeration, and 
proceed to consider the field of human thought in 
Science, Philosophy and Religion, as mapped out by 
it. 

Evidently, if the mind brings to its thinking these 
primary conditions, then the entire form of thought, 
the relations of all the things considered by us, will 
be fixed by them, determined in character by the 
particular idea under which they arise. These laws, 
these organizing forces of the mind, will be to the 



56 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

subjects considered by it, what the cross-lines of a 
telescope are to the objects that come within its field ; 
their position, motion, measurement, in an otherwise 
vague and indeterminate space, are thereby estab- 
lished. Observation thus assumes a precise form, 
and produces exact, mathematical results. As math- 
ematics enter the instrument with the lines, project- 
ing their, rectitude into the outside world, so appre- 
hension, reason, enters the mind with regulative ideas, 
lining before it the universe of thought. No inquiry 
can be put which does not involve one or more of 
these notions, as the form of the judgment which it 
calls up. Where a thing is ; when it is ; under what 
form — that is, resemblances- — it appears ; by what 
causes it is occasioned, are examples of leading aims 
of investigation. 

The first of these intuitive ideas is existence. This 
notion is tacitly present in all thinking, ready to be 
evoked as a direct object of thought at any moment. 
Indeed, so instantly does the mind yield this idea of 
existence, of reality, that in reference to all the things 
actually present to its senses, or its consciousness, it 
rarely puts it in the form of a judgment. Does the 
light exist ? is a question only made possible and 
intelligible by its very being, and the notion of being 
is inseparable from that which provokes the inquiry. 
When existence, however, is not purely phenomenal 
in the world of appearances, but is sub-phenomenal 
in the world of abiding realities, the question of being 
assumes a different and more difficult form, and we 
have the science of ontology, which inquires into the 
reality of matter, of mind and of God ; into the proof 



SPACE THE FIELD, CAUSATION THE LAW, ETC. $? 

of their independent existence. Thus one of the 
latest and most perplexing of questions springs up 
in connection with an idea, omnipresent, and, in its 
earlier forms, so simple as often to involve its ac- 
ceptance in the mere direction of the attention to it. 

Next comes number, the root of mathematics. If 
the notion of being is primary, that of number follows 
instantly upon it. Indeed, only as we pass out of one 
sensation into a second, from a first attitude of mind 
into a succeeding one, and are thus ready to separate 
them as numerically different, do we get motion, 
thought, a play of mental powers. Moreover, the 
primitive character of this idea of number is seen in 
the fact that we so early handle it, abstractly from 
all objects, all concrete relations; and that the cal- 
culations of the several branches of pure mathematics 
are of an exact character, which does not and cannot 
belong to them in their practical or applied forms. 
The units which I add, subtract, and divide, three 
and three of which make six, and six and six of which 
are equal to one another, are units of the mind, not 
things. Six stones are not equal to six other stones 
in any sensible properties, nor are six bushels to six 
other bushels. Indeed, a bushel, meaning thereby a 
precise amount, never actually did exist or will exist, 
and will only find an approximate existence according 
to the nature of the commodity and the means of 
measurement. No process in arithmetic or algebra 
applies exactly to any actual things or transaction. 
A given field does not contain precisely the acres 
and parts of an acre specified ; or the money paid for 
them, precisely the value indicated. The problems of 



58 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

arithmetic may be shifted, again and again, in the com- 
modities named, and yet the problem remain numer- 
ically the same. It may be six cords of wood, or six 
yards of cloth, or six bushels of grain, that bring the 
two dollars and half per cord, or yard, or bushel, and 
the calculation is unaltered. The players change, but 
the play is the same : nay, no set of players exactly 
represent the play, meet everywhere its conditions ; 
and this because it comes to them from abroad — from 
the creative realm of genius, and can only find par- 
tial reproduction in those in a measure ignorant of it. 
Thus all numerical processes have an exact, ideal 
form — a pure thought-form, springing up precise and 
complete under the penetrative, mathematical eye, 
while the bushels and the barrels, the pounds and 
the ounces, the dollars and the cents, actually current 
in the inexact, physical world, over-reach and fall 
short of those perfect estimates of the mind. In- 
deed, to suit the fact, by increasing exactness of 
measurement, to the garment of thought — the math- 
ematical estimates under which the~ mind would pre- 
sent it — is the ever-returning labor of the arts. This 
absolute identity between the mathematical units, 
whose equality and relations are asserted — this ac- 
cepting as units things utterly unlike and unequiva- 
lent to each other, and by no means one to the senses, 
marks the antecedent, constructive force of the mind, 
the power by which it brings order, arrangement, 
relation, to its material, as frost shoots bars of crys- 
tal through the congealing water, crosses, unites and 
compacts them, till the whole assumes definite and 
beautiful form.. 



SPACE THE FIELD, CAUSATION THE LAW, ETC. 59 

The third regulative idea, in our list, is resem- 
blance. First is being, then multiplicity of being, 
then diversity of being. The single does not pass 
into the plural, save through variety, agreement and 
disagreement. We have more than one, and the 
units part from each other in diverse positions and . 
qualities. These three are the conditions of all forms 
of existence ; but at this point, there is a division in 
the processes of mind ; its ideas lose their generality, 
and we have, on the one hand, those which group 
and arrange external, physical existence ; and on the 
other, those which give the conditions of being, and 
the principles of arrangement, to internal, mental 
phenomena. 

Space, a position in space, is the essential condi- 
tion and distinction of all physical things. Nothing 
is in space, occupying it, conditioned to it, and de- 
fined within it, which is not physical. A force which 
finds locality and expression in space, is what is 
meant by a physical force, as distinguished from a 
spiritual one. Intellectual force, thought-force, on 
the other hand, appears in consciousness, and there 
only in its strict, primary character. These two 
forms of being, apprehended each under its own idea, 
fall so utterly apart, are so foreign to each other, that 
we can run no lines from one to the other, can place 
the one neither above nor below the other, within or 
without it. Each is reached separately, each main- 
tains its integrity, each gives its own irresolvable 
phenomena. A thing is no more a thought than a 
thought is a thing. A physical process and an intel- 
lectual product remain forever distinct ; and to iden- 



60 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

tify one with the other is the loss of half of the facts 
of the world, an oversight of the deepest and most 
unchangeable of differences, a return to the unity of 
chaos and confusion, not an advance to that of clas- 
sification and resolution. 

Standing at this dividing point of knowledge, at 
which a true philosophy places us, we see how the 
inquiries of natural science and mental philosophy 
must part, the one to the right and the other to the 
left, and remain forever occupied in distinct realms, 
and, as we shall later see, with diverse and opposed 
conceptions. To clearly apprehend this diversity of 
directions, objects and methods, is a first condition 
of entire success in either department, and in both 
departments. Men first sought to expound facts, 
facts of the exterior world, from within, by a fanciful 
application of the laws of thought, by theories alto- 
gether conjectural, and failed. Later, delighted with 
the results of physical inquiry, they have striven^ 
reversing the process, to carry the laws and forces of 
matter into mind, and are as signally failing. The 
philosopher and physicist must part company, each 
to his respective field, waiting to meet again and 
gather up their completed inquiries under that final 
and inclusive idea— the infinite, the Infinite One, from 
whom both classes of facts proceed, and to whom 
they return. To this assertion there is one most 
essential qualification. These two lines of investiga- 
tion are parallel ; these series of events transpire in 
one time, and are in constant action and reaction. 
Though we know not how the contact takes plage, 
how the transition is effected, yet, like two opposed 



SPACE THE FIELD, CAUSATION THE LAW, ETC. 6 1 

electricities, they do mutually reach and momentarily 
modify each other. 

We now turn first to those ideas which control the 
conceptions of science. The central one of these is 
space. Its primitive character is disclosed in the 
way in which the mind furnishes it forth according 
to the circumstances and estimates present to it. It 
fills the recesses of the mirror with it as if it were a 
window opening into another world. It hangs in 
the shallow stream a reversed concave with its in- 
verted trees, pendant mountains, and distinct clouds ; 
it enlarges the elastic painting into a landscape, and 
pushes it back in remote vistas and dim perspective ; 
it furnishes airy stretches as the field of visions, and 
the arena of dreams ; and in this actual world of ours, 
of fixed bounds and immutable measurements, will 
extinguish one conception, and flash in another, on 
some change in the conditions of judgment, with as 
much ease and rapidity as additional gas is inflamed 
in the burners. Space, combined with number, opens 
up new branches of mathematics. Geometry is an 
a-priori science. Though mathematics take their 
rise in number, which is an idea common to mental 
phenomena, it receives such enlargement in connec- 
tion with space as to turn its almost entire power, as 
a means of inquiry and progress, in the direction of 
physical science, rather than of philosophy. The 
units of space are so perfect and so varied, and so 
important in their practical connections, that mathe- 
matics at once lay hold of them with great power and 
scope. Not only have we the direct measurements 
of space, but many indirect applications. Thus the 



62 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

intensity of heat is shown by the vertical range of 
the thermometer ; the weight of the air by that of 
the barometer ; the presence of heat or electricity 
by the play of an index along a graded circle : in a 
multitude of ways the nature of forces and their de- 
grees are resolved for the eye into a movement in' 
space. 

The primitive power of the mind, its action, inde- 
pendent of experience, is abundantly shown in Geom- 
etry. First, there are axioms, self-evident truths. 
Now no truth can be self-evident that is derived 
from experience through sensation. It is not self- 
evident that an ox-eyed daisy is white ; that a butter- 
cup is yellow ; or that a stone falls to the ground. 
Again, the proofs of geometry are single, yet absolute. 
A proposition enunciated for the first time, and es- 
tablished by a single line of argument, is yet demon- 
strative. No proof resting on one instance in expe- 
rience approaches demonstration. Plainly, the mind 
relies on its own insight in the one case, as it does 
not in the other. Again, the conceptions of geom- 
etry are not those of the senses. Its lines have no 
breadth ; its planes, no thickness ; its circles, no 
defects ; its centres, nothing save position. These 
are all super-sensual conceptions, wholly alien to ex- 
perience. Once more, it makes assertions that no 
experience can verify — as that an hyperbola will 
never meet its asymptote, or a parallel line its fellow ; 
and it conceives and discusses curves with fulness 
and exactness wholly, or almost wholly, unknown 
to observation. This primitive, organic power of the 
mind — a fact to which we are willing often to return, 



SPACE THE FIELD, CAUSATION THE LAW, ETC. 63 

as it is so important in itself, and so constantly de- 
nied — is wonderfully disclosed in mathematics. The 
great geometrician is so almost wholly by the force 
of his own conceptions, unaided by external objects. 
Mathematics might take their birth, and reach well 
nigh their completion, in the solitude and darkness 
of a cell, were it not that the mind will not accept 
excessive development in one direction unsustained 
by kindred growth in others. In the fact, that math- 
ematics are thus rooted in the intuitive ideas of the 
mind, we see an explanation of the fact, that this 
branch is so frequently pursued to advantage early 
in life, and a justification in education of that scheme 
of studies which assigns them a prominent position. 
Mathematics do easily, naturally, come before much 
observation, much science ; and this fact reveals 
their independence of experience, and their necessity 
for its interpretation. The conclusion we have now 
theoretically reached from a study of the powers of 
the mind, conforms to that disclosed by our familiar 
experience in the growth of knowledge. 

But space also furnishes the field in which physi- 
cal facts appear. We now pass to causation, which 
chiefly determines their character. The notion of 
cause and effect, or the conviction of the mind that 
every effect has, must have, a cause, requires thorough 
and careful discussion, since on a right apprehension 
of its nature and validity will depend the correctness 
of much of our philosophy ; the strength and fitness 
of that net-work of connections wherewith the mind 
unites and explains the things about it. There is 
always some spider-web of thought, spun from within, 



64 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

that beads together in beautiful array those dew- 
drops, those separate facts, that the scientific inquiry 
of the time has condensed and ensphered in the 
otherwise indeterminate realm of thought. We first 
inquire, What is this notion ? It is not one of ante- 
cedence. The visible antecedent is not the cause of 
the effect which follows it, but one in a chain of 
effects. A strict cause is always cotemporaneous 
with the effect. The effect is its immediate, mani- 
fest expression. That is to say, the mind puts back 
of every phenomena, everything that appears, every 
event that transpires, something, some force, which 
causes it to appear and transpire. Fragments of 
rock are flying in the air in consequence of the ex- 
plosion of a blast. The immediate cause of this 
momentary effect is the propelling force conceived 
of as lodged in each of the pieces, and ready to be 
delivered by it to any object which it may hit. 
When oxygen and hydrogen unite to form water, 
the cause of the water is the constant and sustained 
action of the two gases in union. Each gas, so far 
as it presents itself to the senses, or responds to 
chemical tests, is an effect, an appearance, a phe- 
nomenon, whose cause is found in the very nature, 
that is the invisible force or power, of the gas. The 
mind compels us to go back of these permanent man- 
ifestations, to some permanent existence which is 
their occasion or cause ; and of transient appear- 
ances to transient forces whose -momentary action 
has produced them. Popular language, while includ- 
ing this exact notion of a cause, finds it convenient 
to extend very much the use of the word ; and hence 



SPACE THE FIELD, CAUSATION THE LAW, ETC. 65 

arises some confusion, and the need of re-directing 
our attention to the precise, philosophical meaning 
of language. An antecedent effect is very frequently 
spoken of as a cause. Thus, the explosion of the 
gunpowder is said to be the cause of the shattered 
and scattered rocks, because this explosion was one 
of the striking antecedent effects, which serves cor- 
rectly to direct the mind to the entire nature of the 
process. With a little more liberty of speech, the 
drilling of the stone and the tamping of the powder, 
are said to be the causes, since they also lie in the 
line of previous effects. Proceeding in the same 
loose way, the person who hired and directed the 
workmen, is said to be the cause of the result. In- 
deed, anything which immediately or more remotely 
constituted a portion of the previous effects, may be 
said to be a cause of those effects. Even further, the 
motive which one has in view in performing an ac- 
tion is sometimes mentioned as its cause. Thus the 
cause of removing or blasting the rocks, is said to be, 
that the line of a railroad might be established. Yet 
even popular speech has here a preference for the 
word reason, and feels the strain put upon the notion 
of a cause. The last word ranges rather along the 
line of previous effects, and has there always a tacit 
reference to the forces which underlie them, and 
which they conveniently serve to designate. The 
true cause, then, is always unseen, unfelt, beyond the 
range of the senses, and is uniformly evoked to ex- 
plain that within the senses. It stands to phenom- 
ena as the interior of a globe to its superfices ; as 
the river to the ice which conceals it. The inside is 



66 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

always inferred from the outside ; the bed of the river 
from its upper layer ; the depths of the ocean from 
its surface ; and the consecutive flow of causes from 
their coherent, visible effects. Causes are thus solely 
reached through the mind, and not through the sen- 
ses ; are the result of the mind's action in supplying 
an explanation of that which arises in the senses. 
If it were said that solids are made up only of sur- 
faces, the senses merely could not contradict the as- 
sertion, since it is only the outside that is ever seen, 
felt, tasted. What is interior, while it remains in- 
terior, is forever beyond them, and is only a matter 
of inference, and that, too, as we shall readily see, 
under this very notion of cause and effect. We 
believe the body to be solid, because its weight is 
thus explained. Again, the cause and effect mutually 
measure and define each other. The effect expresses 
the cause, the whole of it, and no more ; and identity 
of effects, proves identity of causes, and identity of 
causes necessitates identity of effects. All our rea- 
sonings in mechanics, chemistry, physics, imply this, 
rest upon it. If the same causes could issue in new 
effects, or the same effects be referred to different 
causes, there would be an end to safe reasoning in 
these provinces. The word cause, however, must 
now be carefully used in its exact meaning, and not 
in its popular sense. This measurement of the one 
by the other is involved in the general axiom of this 
notion, to wit : that every effect must have a cause. 
If there is a change in the effect, that change is itself 
an effect, and must have a cause, that is, another, or 
new, or modified cause : hence, with a changed effect, 



SPACE THE FIELD, CAUSATION THE LAW, ETC. 6/ 

the cause cannot remain unchanged. On the other 
hand, if the effect remains the same, the cause cannot 
be increased, diminished or modified, since this change 
can only be shown, proved in the effect, and this, by 
the supposition, presents no change. Such is the 
nature of a cause. Its chief features are, that it co- 
exists with the effect, is invisible, insensible, and is 
exactly equivalent to it, expressed in it in kind and 
degree. 

We next inquire, Where is this notion of the mind 
applicable ? Does it cover all phenomena, or only 
physical phenomena ? This is a most important 
question, and a wrong answer, practically, if not the- 
oretically, given, has involved endless mischief, and 
led to the loss of fundamental truths in philosophy. 
If it is universally applicable, a law of mind every- 
where, then it necessarily excludes liberty ; since 
this involves a totally different principle. It equally 
excludes the existence of an Omnipotent Being,. since 
no amount of finite effects can otherwise than estab- 
lish a finite cause, and moreover a cause of the same 
nature with the effects, to wit : a physical and im- 
personal one. The universe exactly expresses God, 
under this notion or principle of the mind, and hence 
God has no being beyond, or more than, that which 
is found as present force in the universe. ) We be- 
lieve more careful consideration will show that this 
law of the mind has sway only among physical things, 
in space, and is not a law of pure, spiritual phenom- 
ena, of consciousness. Our conception of matter, 
material force, as opposed to mind, spiritual force, 
is, that it has a fixed, determinate existence, without 



68 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

spontaneity or resources. Matter is an uttered force, 
one realized, and in its very realization has been 
defined and fixed forever. It has gone forth from 
the region of spontaneity, and, like the weight, the 
hand of man has attached to a machine, presses with 
a settled amount. It is between physical effects and 
physical forces that the mind affirms this perfect co- 
existence, and absolute equivalence, and not of its 
own acts ; except so far as they have touched the 
physical world, appeared as force in it. The gauge 
of a steam-engine measures the exact pressure pres- 
ent, and there is then and there no spontaneity, no 
potential pressure possible : the thoughts and voli- 
tion of the mind express a state or condition of it, 
but do not wholly contain or exhaust the being of the 
soul. Our practical judgments are in entire consist- 
ency with this view. We trace physical forces from 
one stage to another, and, when we stop, stop with a 
still further inquiry on our lips. We feel that every 
stage of the force is only a stage, and not a start, and 
we wait a convenient opportunity to pursue the 
thread of connection further. On the other hand, 
when a force has been referred to a free agent, we 
feel that it has found arrest, and the most stubborn 
necessitarian, even, practically suffers the inquiry 
there to repose. If a building has been fired by 
physical forces, we investigate these, pushing back- 
ward, step by step ; if by an incendiary, we check 
the inquiry with this discovery ; or throw it forward, 
not backward, in a search for his motives. The 
principle of causation, then, as a fixed law, is as- 
signed by the mind to the fixed realm of physical 



SPACE THE FIELD, CAUSATION THE LAW, ETC. 69 

facts, and not to what it itself recognizes as the 
creative, spontaneous realm of spirit. No notion is 
of universal application, but each has its province. 
Causation attaches to forces, and force belongs — it 
is only by figure of speech that we speak of thought- 
force — to space, the realm of physical events. 

We next seek for that in the physical world which 
rests upon this notion of causation. All our knowl- 
edge of the world about us, as a visible, extended, out- 
side world, is to be referred to it. The world without 
distances is like a wrapped up tent, comes collapsing 
in on our senses, yet distance is a matter of inference 
from observation. By experience, we learn that cer- 
tain impressions are due to near, and others to re- 
mote, objects, and from these effects we infer the 
nature of the causes which produces them, the 
dimensions and relations of the objects before us. 
Familiarity and rapidity hide these judgments from 
us — this approach to facts, to causes, through their 
variable effects, but perception does not thereby lose 
its character, as tacitly involving a large amount of 
inference ; all that inference by which the earth is 
spread out in a' vast plain under our feet, and the 
heavens pitched in incredible and immeasurable 
depths above us. Many things illustrate this com- 
plex, inferential action of the mind in sensation. A 
portrait does not present its object to us as large 
or small according to its own actual size. In a 
stereoscopic picture a slight deception is so prac- 
tised upon the eyes, that we seem to see massive, 
public buildings, broad streets, and the dimensions 
of great cities. The spaces then of the visible uni- 



JO SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

verse arise under an instantaneous interpretation of 
effects, through a protracted and growing knowledge 
of causes. But not only are the scope and majesty 
of the visible world due to this idea, our entire belief 
in the invisible world rests upon it. Phenomena, 
sights, sounds, sensations, are underlaid with real, 
permanent existences ; settled, established, consecu- 
tive forces, by this notion of causation. Without 
this, our life would be a waking dream, distinguish- 
able only from other dreams by distinctness of im- 
pression. All sense of reality, of valid being, per- 
manent powers, and immutable conditions, all that in 
its extreme form passes over into the notion of fixed 
fate, an existence not to be escaped in itself or its 
circumstances, springs from causation. Those events, 
which toss us constantly from one to another, those 
fickle, flexible waves, dallying with every wind, and 
sporting with the shallop of our life — perfect images 
of mutability, are nevertheless sustained in thought, 
by the deep, silent, unchangeable recesses of being, 
as fixed in their quiet repose and equipoise as the 
mountain centres. We are anchored and held firm 
in the universe of God -by this notion of causation. 

Again, all reasoning concerning nature, all rational 
knowledge of nature, rests on the idea of cause and 
effect. If there are no causes, no effects, then each 
thing and event is a grain of sand, unapproachable 
through any other, unaffected by any other. No 
explanation can be offered of the existence and form 
of any facts, since these are perfectly independent of 
everything else. Nothing has affected them, they 
affect nothing, and the mind can branch out from no 



SPACE THE FIELD, CAUSATION THE LAW, ETC. 7 1 

one of them in lines of connection or government 
The universe becomes a mass of disconnected facts, 
mere thrums cut short in all directions, its dependen- 
cies, figments of the head. It is of no avail to say, 
that stated antecedents can take the place of causes. 
They cannot do so, and give the mind any reason or 
explanation of their presence. The antecedent is 
unaffected by the consequent ; the consequent has 
no dependence on the antecedent, and the conjunc- 
tion, if apt, is a new ground of difficulty and surprise. 
Neither can the materialist, rejecting this idea of 
causation, explain from fixed sequences merely, any 
anticipation he may have of the future. That things 
have been together without ground and dependence, 
is no reason from which to infer that they will be 
together in like manner again ; but rather the reverse, 
since accidental conjunctions are conceived of by us 
as changeable. Nor is the mere fact of a repeated 
concurrence of phenomena, as heat and light, a 
ground of expecting their continued occurrence be- 
cause of the effect of this repetition on the mind. 
What right has the materialist to talk of an effect 
on the mind of ever-returning facts, if he admits no 
effects and no causes ? No, all the connections of 
events, and hence reasoning concerning events, are 
sundered by the rejection of this idea ; and we might 
as well expect a man to walk with every muscle di- 
vided, as the mind to think about physical events, 
explain and anticipate them, with the conviction that 
there is no causal dependence between them. Not 
only can nothing be understood which happens in 
nature on the materialistic view, no explanation can 



72" SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

be offered of any of the actions of men in connection 
with it. Motives, ends in view, cannot be assigned 
as reasons for any undertaking : for an undertaking 
implies a dependence of results on the means to be 
employed, a pursuit of objects through appropriate 
efforts, and these involve causation. Reason, there- 
fore, falls away from human conduct, just in the de- 
gree in which causation disappears from nature, and 
the rationality of our lives is lost, withers under this 
one central stroke of severance and division of the 
universe of God from the root of force and purpose 
whence it springs. When forces fail to execute pur- 
poses, purposes must fail of conception or be born to 
imbecility. 

Once more ; our sense of the perpetuity of nature 
rests chiefly on causation. A certain quota, comple- 
ment of forces, causes, combined in a definite method, 
are found in the world about us. These remaining, 
nature, in her present results and laws, will remain. 
We have, therefore, an expectation of the permanence 
of these, so long as the plan which includes them 
shall require them. There is a fixed, expressed pur- 
pose in nature, and we anticipate its accomplishment ; 
a method, and we wait for its uniform development. 
What is this instant in the universe is fitted to carry 
it forward for an indefinite period, and those, there- 
fore, who predicate a change, have the burden of proof 
resting on them to show the grounds and reasons of 
it. These are to be found, if found at all, not in 
causes themselves, not in the world itself, but in the 
purposes of God. 

Such is the nature and application of the notion of 



SPACE THE FIELD, CAUSATION THE LAW, ETC. 73 

causation, and such a portion of the purposes sub- 
served by it. What, then, is its proof? How do we 
know the action of the mind to be valid in affirming 
causes, in habitually uniting events by underlying 
forces ? We answer, as this is a necessary and con- 
stant action of the mind, it is of the nature known as 
ultimate, or axiomatic. It is as much an axiom, that 
there is a reason or cause for the fall of a meteor to 
the ground, as it is that a straight line is the shortest 
path between two points. Neither of these state- 
ments call for any further proof, and for precisely the 
same reason ; the mind is adequate to this knowl- 
edge, and this knowledge is ultimate with it. If a 
man requires proof that he sees, we can give him no 
other proof than to let him see again. If he denies 
pain to be painful, we have only to repeat the pain 
till he thinks differently of it. If equals added to 
equals do not make equals, there must be added till 
they do, or nothing can be done for a mind so awry. 
Accepting axioms is like adjusting a field-glass to its 
focus. Our labor cannot proceed till this is accom- 
plished. If events can be accepted without causes, 
then the mind so regarding them is incapacitated to 
reason concerning them ; since, as already shown, 
reasoning, conclusions, rest on valid connections, 
efficient forces, determining events to be thus and 
not otherwise. The ultimate, axiomatic action of the 
mind in assigning causes, is evinced by its constancy 
and universality. Neither Mill nor Spencer, nor any 
philosopher, through mere philosophy, has ever been 
able to force his thinking into any other channel. 
Their works are saturated with causation. Their 
4 



74 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

explanations everywhere involve it. They would not 
be content to say, the night and the day, the light 
and the heat, are as they are, because of a stated 
antecedence. Indeed, what is ' this very word, be- 
cause, by a cause, in such a connection, but a sub- 
orned witness. Says Hume — an early advocate of 
stated antecedence, one of the most penetrating 
minds that ever employed the materialistic doc- 
trines, and who uniformly used them merely as the 
weapons of an iconoclast, striking down the beliefs 
of men, while confessing a philosophical inability to 
supply their place — " Allow me to tell you, that I 
never asserted so absurd a proposition as that any 
thing might arise without a cause." He then pro- 
ceeds to say that his real difficulty lies with the proof 
of causation. Is there not here a plain missing of 
the point, a falling off from true philosophy, when 
one can regard the assertion as absurd, that anything 
arises without a cause, and still call for the proof of 
causation ? What is an absurdity but something 
contrary to a primitive, necessary conviction ? And 
what constitutes our strongest and best proofs, but 
primitive, necessary convictions ? Why are the con- 
clusions of mathematics demonstrative, save because 
they rest wholly on these convictions ? Mill's defin- 
ition of matter, carefully worded, so as to avoid the 
implication of underlying forces, of causes, neverthe- 
1 less involves them. It is this — " A permanent pos- 
sibility of sensations." 

Now, what is a possibility, but something which 
will happen on the meeting of certain conditions ? 
And how can we conceive conditions to be condi- 



SPACE THE FIELD, CAUSATION THE LAW, ETC. 75 

tions, except as they determine the action of forces ? 
As far as any apprehension or rational explanation 
of the mind is concerned, the hand might as well be 
stretched in one direction as in another, if in neither 
direction there is any agent or force whose effects it 
is to feel. Say to a blind man, there is a permanent 
possibility of your being burnt if you put your hand 
down, and he will ask you, why. If you cannot re- 
spond there is hot iron in this direction and not in 
that, a fire here, there is not yonder, reason is con- 
founded, and apprehension at an end. Men have 
wandered so far from the truth, because it is so 
simple and so near them. They have only to see, 
only to think, and they prefer to philosophise, till 
philosophy swallows up simple sight and the primi- 
tive conditions of thought. Philosophy has more 
often swept away the facts it has been brought for- 
ward to expound, than presented them in their first 
force and authority. Yet philosophy, false and in- 
sufficient, is the road to philosophy, just and com- 
plete, and this philosophy it is that lays bare the 
foundations of knowledge, and gives to the eye and 
the mind what before was assured to the foot and 
hand. There is in the part, which this notion of 
cause and effect plays in knowledge, a signal illus- 
tration of the dependence of physical science on a 
sound philosophy. The fundamental link between 
all facts, the connection of thought which every sci- 
entific theory from least to greatest is employing, has 
been denied to physical inquiries, as invalid, fanciful 
and metaphysical ; yet physicists have adopted and 
urged forward that materialism, one of whose first 



?6 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

achievements is to dissolve into independent, unco- 
hesive points of vapor, this compacted and consoli- 
dated universe, woven and knit together from side 
to side, welded and riveted together from end to end 
with cords and bars of force. To be sure, they have 
matched their blindness on one side by a more for- 
tunate blindness on the other ; and having accepted 
materialism, they have forthwith forgotten their al- 
legiance to it, in a fresh enthusiasm for physical pur- 
suits, as earnestly tracing causes and delighting in 
them, as if these had not just been pronounced, by 
those who lay down for them the laws of thought, 
mere illusions, Will-o'-the-wisps. Thus the physicist, 
again and again, strikes the foundation from beneath 
his own labors, yet goes on to build, employing any 
leisure moment that may fall to him in deriding 
metaphysics, of whose most unfortunate and gro- 
tesque results he presents the most unfortunate and 
grotesque example. 

Again, we see in this notion one of the clearest 
illustrations of the weakness of materialism in deriv- 
ing all knowledge from experience, in regarding the 
powers of mind as simply the reflex product of mate- 
rial forces. Are we to expect putty to become lucid, 
pearly, opalescent, by the protracted shining of the 
sun upon it ? Brilliants catch the light in their first 
making up, or fail of it forever. Crystalline struct- 
ure implies primitive, crystalline power. The mind, 
by its own native penetration, with powers that make 
it to be mind, threads the phenomenal universe to- 
gether by forces and agencies that never reveal them- 
selves in the senses ; but, waiting spirits of thought, 



SPACE THE FIELD, CAUSATION THE LAW, ETC. 'J J 

stand ready, by explanation, revelation, illumination, 
to do service amid things otherwise dark, opaque, 
intractable, dead. The real majesty of the mind is 
only apprehensible as we see it thus reach, build up, 
and expound this substantial world of existences 
about us out of the slight suggestions of the senses, 
that, like a torch in the night, cast a few gleams of 
flickering, ghostly light on the things nearest them. 
The animal that lives in the centre of a circle of sen- 
suous impressions — a circle, a few inches, or feet, or 
miles, in diameter — stands in what contrast with man, 
to whom the visible is but the symbol and suggestion 
of that vast, invisible procession that hourly troops 
before his inner vision, and makes him the companion 
of unseen forces, dealing ever with unknown agents, 
lodged in the matter about him, as ideas are con- 
tained in words ! He puts his hand to the lever, 
that he may impart force ; he draws near the fire, 
that he may receive heat ; he opens his eyes, that 
he may catch light from out-lying stars ; he lets go 
the magnetic needle, that it may feel attractions that 
run from pole to pole ; he touches the telegraph, that 
he may send thought ; he administers a remedy, that 
he may quicken life. Everywhere he is in fellowship 
with the subtle spirits that do the bidding of his 
Heavenly Father. Such is man, because such is 
mind in its primitive powers, in the image wherein 
it was at the first fashioned ; because it pauses not a 
moment on the film of being, but presses inward in 
belief of its realities, and in fellowship with them, as 
substantial as they, as substantial as their common 
Author. The bit of mirrors that gives back the sky 



?8 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

to the sky were as marvellous as man, if man stood 
only in passive, dumb reflection of the world about 
him ; if thought and truth crept into him as light 
into a crsytal. It is because light, comprehension, 
construction go forth from him ; because by the touch 
of his commanding thought he builds up this valid k 
universe, not too large for his intellect, not too grand 
for his emotions, from the ephemeral appearances 
that come and go around him ; because he penetrates 
beneath the transient states of his constantly flowing, 
his infinitely flexible, experiences, and predicates of 
himself permanent being, immortality, that he stands 
revealed the heir of all truth, of the spaces and 
years in which his thoughts so freely, with such 
primitive ownership, rove ; because, reading the pur- 
poses of Heaven in their execution, rising on the 
present hour, the bower of the senses, as a little 
island in the great sea, he proceeds to overlook the 
undisclosed eternity, to declare where land is to be 
found, where lie elysian fields, the wealth of new con- 
tinents ; to clothe himself with the faith and courage 
of a voyager, and, in obedience to the law and the 
hope within him, to launch forth, not to ground his 
keel again, save on the shores of the now invisible 
world. 



LECTURE IV. 

RESEMBLANCE NOT THE SOLE LAW OF THOUGHT. 

In our last lecture, we spoke chiefly of causation. 
The discussion is not yet complete. Materialism 
has not brushed aside this notion without a vigorous 
effort to supply its place. It has been a great gain 
to sound philosophy, that the idea of cause and effect 
is so obviously beyond all observation that few mate- 
rialists have even attempted 'to derive it from experi- 
ence, but have been compelled to reject it as plainly 
not so to be reached. The great void in thought 
thus made has been left vacant, or filled up with 
stated antecedents, according as the parties who have 
occasioned it have been destructive or constructive 
in their tendencies — simply sceptical, or ambitious 
of a new philosophy. The constructive, creative 
spirit has decidedly predominated in the later phases 
of materialism, and such men as Mill, Spencer and 
Bain, have striven to give a consistent substratum, a 
sufficient connection, to thought without the idea of 
causation. This effort is deliberately, patiently, and 
powerfully made in Spencer's Principles of Psychol- 
ogy. It rests on the notion of resemblance, which is 
contained in, which necessarily underlies, that of 
stated antecedents. Like antecedents imply or give 
promise of like consequents, and hence the whole 
attention of science, of thought, is to be directed to 
likeness, to resemblances, as the real thread of order 
and coherence in the universe. 



80 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

Now, there are two sufficient reasons against this 
phase of materialism which may be urged before 
considering it in detail. The first of these is, that 
the notion of resemblance has itself been pilfered, 
and is an original solvent furnished by the mind, not 
given to it. We do not see things to be like ; if so, 
every eye must pronounce at once, and always, on all 
shades and forms of likeness and unlikeness, as upon 
all colors. We do not see things, we judge them ; we 
think them to be like or unlike. The notion of like- 
ness comes in, is brought in by the mind, to explain 
the things to which we apply it. A great difference 
between brute perception and rational perception 
will be found just here. Things are simply seen 
by the animal ; they are compared by the man, and 
their agreements as agreements observed. It is one 
thing to have a sensation twice, another thing to 
observe the fact, and affirm the identity of the two 
states. The first may occur many times before we 
make this last assertion of agreement. If, there- 
fore, Spencer and others should succeed in resolv- 
ing all judgments into one category, that of re- 
semblance, they would still be called on to explain 
the origin of this idea, and should not be allowed 
to assume it as an obvious product of mere expe- 
rience, of simple sensation. The mind cannot get 
to work, cannot begin to manipulate its sensations, 
and manufacture them into thought, without concep- 
tions, ideas, under which it proceeds. If it starts 
with comparing its impressions, it must first be 
aware that this is what it is to do, and open the 
labor under the idea of resemblance. No mere 



RESEMBLANCE NOT THE SOLE LAW OF THOUGHT. 8 I 

physical facts arrange themselves, unite themselves 
in classes. 

The second objection, before inquiry, is, that stated 
antecedents constitute no explanation of facts, but are 
rather the statement of the facts without explanation. 
An apple, unsupported, falls to the ground is a fixed 
sequence, but this is not the ultimate statement, the 
observed and expounded fact to the true philosopher, 
but that rather which calls for and suggests explanation. 
Why, by what force, does the fall follow the detach- 
ment of the apple ? How is the consequent locked in 
with its antecedent ; directly as the expansion of iron 
under heat, or indirectly as the increased current in 
the galvanic battery on the addition of fresh acid ? 

These are the questions which science is really 
putting, and it seeks to settle antecedents only that 
it may penetrate their nature and relations, and thus 
answer these inquiries. So radical, however, would 
be the effect on philosophy and science of this analy- 
sis of all judgments and resemblance, that it deserves 
further attention, especially as metaphysicians, so far 
removed from materialism as Hamilton, seem ready, 
incautiously, to admit it. 

" In opposition to the views hitherto promulgated 
in regard to Comparison, I will show that this faculty 
is at work in every, the simplest, act of mind ; and that, 
from the primary affirmation of existence in an orig- 
inal act of consciousness to the judgment contained 
in the conclusion of an act of reasoning, every opera- 
tion is only an evolution of the same elementary pro- 
cess — that there is a difference in the complexity, 
none in the nature of the act ; in short, that the 
4* 



82 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

various products of Analysis and Synthesis, of Ab- 
straction 'and Generalization, are all merely the results 
of Comparison, and that the operations of Conception 
or simple Apprehension, of Judgment, and of Rea- 
soning, are only acts of Comparison, in various appli- 
cations and degrees. What I have, therefore, to 
prove, is, in the first place, that Comparison is sup- 
posed in every, the simplest act of knowledge ; in 
the second, that our factitiously simple, our factitiously 
complex, our abstract, and our generalized notions, 
are all merely so many products of Comparison ; in 
the third, that Judgment, and, in the fourth, that 
Reasoning, is identical with Comparison." 

Now, as comparison goes on under resemblance, it 
is evident that Hamilton looked upon this as the all- 
inclusive idea under which the mind's activity pro- 
ceeds, and thus virtually leaves no room for coupling 
our thoughts by cause and effect, or, indeed, by any 
other intuitive idea. The reason of this is found in 
his logic, and I need not pause to give it. Its plausi- 
bility will be more apparent later. We turn now to 
Spencer, with whom a kindred belief is the founda- 
tion of a more consistent philosophy. It is impossi- 
ble to give anything more than the concise statement 
of the result at which Spencer arrives, as the discus- 
sion, with steadily growing and closely welded con- 
clusions, approaches the end, through hundreds of 
compact pages. Says he, as he nears the goal ; " At . 
length, continued analysis has brought us down to 
the relations underlying, not only all preceding rela- 
tions, but all processes of thought whatever. From 
the most complex and abstract inferences of the de- 



RESEMBLANCE NOT THE SOLE LAW OF THOUGHT. 83 

veloped man, down to the most rudimentary intui- 
tions of the infant ; all intelligence proceeds by the 
establishment of relations of likeness and unlikeness." 
This conclusion has been reached by an examina- 
tion of mathematics, whose reasonings all proceed on 
perfect agreement, complete equality of units ; by a 
consideration of the classifications of science, obviously 
resting on resemblance ; and of its laws, the expression 
of like results as the fruits of like conditions ; and by 
the further and more difficult labor of resolving a por- 
tion of the intuitive ideas offered by us — that portion 
more commonly accepted, such as space and time 
- — into the results of a comparison of like series and 
contrasted series of sensations. What, then, is the 
significance of this conclusion, for the red heat and 
forging of which, a fierce furnace of logic has been 
maintained, and trip-hammer blows of thought have 
been bestowed, through a whole volume of philoso- 
phy. What matters it, if it be true as Spencer 
affirms, that all, " the most complex processes of 
reasoning are resolvable into intuitions — that is, ob- 
servations — of likeness and unlikeness between terms 
more or less involved ? " In it, Spencer is well 
aware that there is found the germinant seed of ma- 
terialism. If the one assumption of resemblance, 
as a product of experience, can pass unchallenged, and 
all judgments can be resolved into it, as their very 
substance, the work is done. Evidently, if we have 
no other sources of the material of knowledge than 
sensation, the mind can alone busy itself in compar- 
ing these sensations ; the likeness and unlikeness be- 
tween them will be its sole resource of thought. If, 



84 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

then, it can be shown by exhaustive analysis, that all 
judgments are of this character, as Spencer asserts, 
the clearest color of probability is at once reflected 
on the correlative doctrine, and it becomes certain 
that the mind has no other inlet of knowledge than 
observation, and no other office than the classification 
of the matter so obtained. The exhaustive and la- 
borious discussion of Spencer is an effort to establish 
that which would admittedly be true on the ground 
of materialism, and thus, by an independent confir- 
mation of its conclusions, to shore up the premises on 
which they rest. Here, then, is the source of the 
interest Spencer feels in the subject, and the reason 
of the labor he has expended upon it. The wedge 
of materialism finds entrance in this assertion of the 
one unmistakable character of all judgments. The 
scope of our faculties is thereby defined. Thus much 
we may do, and not more. So far our powers are re- 
liable, and not further. We can deal with sensations, 
but we cannot transcend them. We can discover the 
order that is in them, but we can bring no order to 
them. The action of the mind on the material world 
about it is from beneath, upward, as wild vines climb 
on to and over shrubs in a hedge-row ; not from above, 
downward, as the hawk perches upon an oak. If we 
add to this doctrine the sorting power of our physical 
constitution as Bain presents it ; our nerves defining, 
connecting, and perpetuating the several classes of 
impressions that run along them, we see the alleged 
mechanical and physical features of the mind brought 
into bold relief. What a fanning-mill is to mixed 
grains, foul-seed and chaff, separating them and re- 



RESEMBLANCE NOT THE SOLE LAW OF THOUGHT. 85 

turning each to its own drawer, or repository, our 
nervous organization is to the mingled impressions 
of the outside world, resolving them into feelings of 
various kinds, into ideas and memories according as 
they enter along this or that channel, tarry longer, 
or are expelled quicker. The drift of a swollen stream 
is no more certainly divided, the fine sand yonder, 
the gravel here beneath our feet, and the coarse cob- 
bles behind us, than, under this general view of the 
mind, do the several products of sensation, floating 
in the nervous system, at length gravitate each to its 
own place. So important are the conclusions as re- 
gards the origin and character of our powers contained 
in this simple assertion, that " the most complex 
processes of reasoning are resolvable into intuitions 
of likeness and unlikeness, between terms more or 
less involved." The scope of our powers is of course 
correspondingly restricted. We can make nothing 
more out of morality than can be found in sensations ; 
these are the cucumbers from which we are to extract 
our spiritual sunshine, more or less, or go without it. 
We are limited to a comparison of pleasures, and, 
therefore, our inquiries can issue in nothing but util- 
itarianism. If we attempt, in religion, to set up this 
ladder of like and unlike, and climb into the heavens 
by it, we find it lamentably short. Indeed, how can 
God, standing off in the separation of his infinite at- 
tributes, be reached by resemblances, whose limited 
range is that of observation ? Hence, Spencer gives 
this notion of the infinite place among those pseudo- 
ideas that haunt the thoughts, but are never reached 
by them. Or how can any invisible world whatever, 



S6 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

of forces, or powers, or spirits, be reached by a phil- 
osophy whose sole occupation is comparison, and 
whose only material in hand, on which to base its 
resemblances, are earthly, visible, sensible appear- 
ances ? The mind is thus imprisoned within the 
horizon of the eye ; tethered down to the range of * 
the nostril, the touch of the finger ; and though sharp 
and cunning enough here, so far fails of immortality 
and another life that it knows not well what these 
mean. " Dust to dust," becomes the one law of its 
being. 

How, then, it is asked, is this resolution, so fatal 
in its consequences, of all thought into the tracing 
of resemblances, even apparently possible ? Because, 
we answer, there is in it a very broad substratum of 
truth, and when it is not true, it is closely allied to 
the truth. Utility, a comparison of enjoyments, is 
intimately connected with morality, though it is not 
morality : and the identity and likeness of causes are 
determined only by likeness and identity of effects, 
of visible things. If we refer for a moment to the 
scheme already given of regulative ideas, we shall see 
how this one of resemblance casts its shadow over all 
others, and thus, in constant contact with them all, x 
may, by adroit analysis, be furnished as their very 
substance. We start with existence, but this notion 
cannot find bold relief till we affirm it of several 
things ; till we have contrasted existence with non- 
existence, the presence of an object with its absence ; 
and thus, by comparison, given clearness to the condi- 
tions of the conception. When we come to number, it 
involves at once unity and plurality, and a recognition 



RESEMBLANCE NOT THE SOLE LAW OF THOUGHT. 8? 

of the perfect identity or equality, or likeness of each 
unit, as a unit, in the numbers to be manipulated. 
Two and two make four only on condition that two 
is equal to two, one to one. 

Again, when we pass to space in its practical ap- 
plications, positions, locations, are utterly undefined, 
till we have taken two or more positions and insti- 
tuted relations between them, compared them as on 
this side, or that ; as above, or below. The words 
above, below, simply mark the way in which we des- 
ignate objects that stand in certain like relations to 
other objects. When we pass on to causation, this 
is only approachable through resemblances — resem- 
blances carefully, methodically traced among the 
things with which we have to deal. That like 
causes will produce like effects is the working axiom 
of this department : and the likeness of the causes 
can only be established by the likeness of those visi- 
ble marks or signs which accompany them. How 
easy is it, then, dropping the notion of cause, to sub- 
stitute for the more cumbersome expression, the 
simpler one, like follows like ; and thus to resolve 
every inquiry of science into one purely of resem- 
blances. This it already is in form, and therein, seems 
to provoke this oversight of its secret nature. We 
could thus, with Spencer, trace throughout the pro- 
cesses of thought, and, by skimming a little lightly a 
few fields, reach the same conclusions with him. The 
error of this analysis will be seen, however, when we 
scrutinize more carefully our judgments, and strive to 
render all the elements they contain. Resemblance, 
as compared with our other intuitive ideas, has beer. 



55 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

like more gross, when connected with more volatile, 
elements in chemical composition. Inaccurate an- 
alysis always renders those, while, more frequently 
than otherwise, these, their subtle companions escape, 
leaving them the field. Take, as an example, the no- 
tion of time. Let this be involved in a judgment, and 
there will always be a residuum of thought which re- 
semblance alone does not cover. Says Spencer, in 
substance, if we compare several distinct series of 
events which follow in a fixed order, and cannot be 
repeated, the mind is struck with this agreeing fact 
in them. This sequential relation under which they 
transpire, in an irreversible way, we call time. In 
his own words, " It is impossible to think of time, 
without thinking of some succession ; and it is equally 
impossible to think of any succession without think- 
ing of time. Time, as known to us, is relativity of 
position among the states of consciousness." That is, the 
agreeing relation between two series of a fixed, irre- 
versiable order, is time. Is this analysis complete ? 
Far from it. Stop here, and we have resemblance 
alone, a likeness of relation. Push it one step fur- 
ther, and we shall reach the missing ingredient. Let 
several things be given us to compare. We must be 
told in what respect we are to compare them ; in size, 
in color, in form, or in flavor ? That is to say, the 
comparison cannot be instituted or proceed, except 
under a specific idea. The injunction, Compare, 
Compare, is vague and bewildering till we are told 
in what respect to compare the things before us. 
Take now a series of sensations which are to be 
made the subject of our thoughts. We may be called 



RESEMBLANCE NOT THE SOLE LAW OF THOUGHT. 89 

on to classify them as agreeable or disagreeable ; or 
the objects which occasioned them, as red or yellow, 
as hard or soft, for these impressions are all products 
of our sensitive organs, and may, therefore, guide the 
inquiry. In each case, however, the guiding point or 
consideration in the comparison precedes the com- 
parison, has already been given in an organ of sense, 
and is the light under which the process goes on. 
Now suppose we are to institute a comparison be- 
tween sensations in reference to their sequence — a 
relation, according to Spencer, involving that of time, 
equivalent to it. This notion also must first be given 
to the mind, be made present to it, before it can push 
forward a comparison under it. If the mind has not 
known a sequence as a sequence, it cannot consider 
separate series in this respect. The notion of time, 
then, precedes the comparison, and does not follow it 
as its fruits. As it is not a sensation, like white and 
black, it must be an intuition, an idea furnished by 
the mind under which it itstitutes and maintains the 
the comparison in the several series of events before 
it. Thus our judgment is found to involve another 
antecedent element beside that of resemblance, to 
wit, that of time ; and this element can itself be 
made the predicate of an independent proposition. 
Every event happens in time, is a judgment turning 
on a distinct intuition, and is not analyzable into re- 
semblance. The same could easily be shown to be 
true of the other intuitions, as space, consciousness, 
right. The fact, then, is, that every intuition is 
present in the propositions to which it pertains as 
an irreducible element, and that every judgment so 



90 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

framed as to contain one of these as its predicate, 
does not suffer resolution. Other judgments, exceed- 
ingly like these, may be made to render up the idea 
of resemblance ; but the simple, primitive judgments 
which apply our intuitions, have each a primitive 
character of its own. This event has a cause, this 
action is right, are assertions of first truths, not of 
a likeness between one event and another, one action 
and another. If we so strive to explain them, we shall 
be obliged at length to go further, and account for this 
likeness between the two events on the ground of the 
primitive conceptions of causation and of right. 

But the notion of resemblance has been especially 
brought forward to displace that of causation, in con- 
nection with which it finds its chief significance. The 
relation of the two, therefore, in physical inquiries, in 
science, calls for a brief elucidation. The processes 
of science all proceed visibly, ostensibly, under the 
idea of resemblance. The classifying of objects in 
families, in genera and species, as of plants in Botany, 
or animals in Zoology, is the first difficult and ever- 
returning labor of the inquirer. Here a thorough 
penetration into agreements and disagreements, 
points of resemblance and of difference, is a chief 
requisite, and may seem to exhaust the mind's action. 
But even in these sciences, which are chiefly sciences 
of classification, this search after the likeness and 
unlikeness of things has tacit reference to funda- 
mental qualities or properties which belong to them, 
which make them what they are ; or to their descent 
from common parentage, impressing upon them their 
agreements. 



RESEMBLANCE NOT THE SOLE LAW OF THOUGHT. 9 1 

In botany, plants were for a time united by one class 
of resemblances, and later, re-arranged under another. 
Why this change ? Because the one set of agree- 
ments were believed to be more closely united to in- 
terior nature and character than the other ; to better 
express the descent and general properties of plants, 
the forces in the past which have made them what 
they are, and the forces in the present which ex- 
press their innermost being and affinities. What 
is it that marks the superiority of one system of clas- 
sification over another but its more intimate relations 
to inherent, essential, efficient forces, and its greater 
power to express, therefore, the real position of a 
plant or an animal in the general plan of life, its kin- 
ship of characteristics and descent ? And what is 
this but getting a little closer to the causal relations 
at work? No single outside agreements, however 
striking, are of much interest, provided, on the whole, 
they appear to have been accidental — not the indices 
of agreeing causes, not the marks of like relations in 
the plan of properties and powers. The mints have 
a certain kind of odors : this constitutes a strong fea- 
ture of the class. But a like odor elsewhere, as in a 
geranium, is not particularly significant. It is, then, 
agreements which go beyond the senses, which have 
interpretation in them, which put us in connection 
with the secrets of vital and physical forces, that 
have interest for us, and make classification a scien- 
tific process, a means of knowing, of reaching and 
using, causes. The child may classify his broken 
bits of crockery by their shape, or the coloring upon 
them, and, as dealing with mere resemblances, the 



92 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

relation is accidental, one of no interest. He may 
classify them according to the material of which they 
respectively have been made, and immediately they 
are attached to different portions of the earth, different 
nations, and very distinct stages of art. No depart- 
ment can establish its claims to be a science till its 
classifications begin to assume something of this 
pregnant form, to contain the underlying history of 
forces, and to strike out, here and there, into flashes 
of causation. When we get hold of the secret of a 
force, discover how to breed an animal, how to modify 
a type, how to mingle colors in a new flower, or fla- 
vors in a new apple, we feel that observation is 
passing into science ; that we begin to know, since 
we have penetrated appearances, resemblances, and 
touched with authority the forces that underlie them. 
Whatever defects the Darwinian theory may have, 
its chief, merit, that which has given it hold on so 
many minds, has been this : that its classifications 
are thought to put us on the actual lines of develop- 
ment, to mark the directions of embryonic and of 
progressive growth. This theory, which is pressed 
by Spencer, and is chiefly used in the interest of 
materialism, nevertheless, owes its principal interest 
to the antagonistic principle involved in causation. 

Another and stricter class of sciences direct their 
attention more undividedly to causes, forces. Of 
' this nature, are natural philosophy, chemistry, mete- 
orology. In mechanics, we are tracing forces exclu- 
sively, and agreeing appearances are only thought of 
as the expression, the language of agreeing causes. 
Not able to penetrate to causes, we treat them wholly 



RESEMBLANCE NOT THE SOLE LAW OF THOUGHT. 93 

through their effects, through the appearances that 
accompany them ; but the mind, the thought, is al- 
ways truly dealing with the forces conceived by it to 
be present. A set of pullies, under certain conditions, 
raises a weight ; a lever, under other conditions, per- 
forms the same labor. The mind has no explanation 
for these results, except that of equal force in the two 
cases. The likeness of the effects has its significance 
in enabling us to attribute, to unlike antecedents, a 
like secret efficiency or force. This word, force, fol- 
lowing us everywhere in physical inquiry, is a con- 
stant witness to the nature of mental processes ; a 
constant reminder of the mind's interpretation of 
resemblances. In physics, chemistry, meteorology, 
physiology, we are satisfied only as we seem to touch 
and define the forces at work ; and it is our greater 
success in this respect, in one department than in 
another, in dealing with physical and chemical forces 
than with vital forces, that makes of the first a 
more complete science than of the last. It is a mat- 
ter of choice in geometry whether or not we formally 
state our axioms. They just as certainly underlie 
the proofs in the one case as the other. The mind 
requires no reminder of axioms ; thus is it with this 
idea of causation. Phenomena run along on the sur- 
face, under the form of resemblance, and language 
often takes them up in this shape ; but the mind 
does not the less interpret them through the ever- 
present axiom of causation. A boy shapes the clay 
in his hand into a marble, and the bullet comes forth 
from the mould, round. The two balls, as balls, have 
no interest to observers. They are like in form from 



94 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

totally different causes. The dew-drop enspheres 
itself at the end of a grass blade ; the shot falls from 
the tower, and reaches the water a solid sphere ; the 
earth, a mammoth globe, has felt its central force 
shaping it through every solid inch of its contents. 
Here, a resemblance opens a vista into forces, and the 
mind is all attention. The rounded pebbles of con- 
glomerate rock, the abraded stones of a mass of drift, 
have meaning in their forms, because they indicate 
the previous action of forces like those which now 
chafe the shale on the beach. Resemblances, then, 
are the visible signs of an invisible thought, and it 
would be as possible and as philosophical to say, that 
in language we are dealing, not with ideas but with 
like characters and sounds only, because these are 
always present, and all that is present to the senses, 
as to say, that we are dealing in science only with 
the likeness of phenomena, because this likeness is 
the inseparable expression of the included causes. 
Scientific inquiry progresses under one idea, and 
through and by it reaches another, as the eye fol- 
lows the printed page, while the imagination revels 
in the imagery of poetry, and the thought strikes 
deep into its sentiments. Indeed, there could be no 
depths in poetry, were there no hidden truths in 
philosophy : were all phenomena a spectral surface 
play, a filmy effervescence, an illusion of the senses, 
without source or issue, permanent being or efficient 
force. 

This axiom of causation, this regulative idea of 
force, which we have now taken so much pains to 
define and establish, is the essential frame-work of 



RESEMBLANCE NOT THE SOLE LAW OF THOUGHT. 95 

the physical universe. It is the limit and law of all 
its connections. It excludes fortuity, shuts out the 
chaos of chance, and limits accident to unperceived, 
unanticipated causes. Creation is order, is the set- 
tling and defining of forces ; is the putting of given 
things in given places ; is the shaping of results ac- 
cording to a fixed method : and this labor throughout 
is but the systematized action of causes. Creation 
is the wedding of defined action to a defined element 
for a defined end, and this is the law of causes. But 
that which conditions the presence of order in the 
universe, conditions the mind's apprehension of that 
order. All thought, all inquiry, all movement back- 
ward or forward for the apprehension of that which 
has been, or anticipation of that which is to be, must 
proceed along the connection of fixed causes. By as 
much as the effect should be found to differ from, or 
transcend, the cause, by so much would there be a 
loss of all connection, all dependence, a cutting of 
the thread of force and thought, which had entered 
the fabric of events. The mind, when dealing with 
things — observe the limitation — can only unite them 
by this notion, and, therefore, all forethought and 
afterthought, all passage of the perceptive faculties 
into and through the objects about them, must rest 
on this idea, must arise under this law of the phys- 
ical universe. 

What is true of thought, is true of our active pow- 
ers. There is one and the same condition of their 
exercise. We learn to control events, because we 
learn the forces which are efficient in them ; can our- 
selves add to their efficiency or withdraw a portion 



g6 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

of it from them. The physical universe is a middle 
term between us and God. It is an express declar- 
ation, on his part, of what he has done, and what he 
will do : what forces he will loan us, and on what con- 
ditions. We, therefore, enter the field of exertion 
under a settled contract. We can make no sudden 
appeal for favor ; we can find no extenuation for ig- 
norance, nor oversight for indolence. We are put at 
once to inquiry and faithfulness, and the least failure 
in either is liable to a severe punishment. Now, 
under such conditions only, could we work with God, 
or find a motive even for exertion. If physical forces 
were not fixed in measure and law ; if they were lia- 
ble to be suddenly withdrawn and re-issued under 
new conditions ; if they were occasionally comple- 
mented by supernatural intervention, so far forth ele- 
ments of uncertainty would enter, inducing idleness, 
an ill-grounded faith in- our own good fortune and 
God's grace to us. Indeed, a belief in the power of 
prayer even, is sometimes so held as to lead to an 
oversight of duties, of natural laws, whose injunctions 
are in the imperative form. Nothing is more natural 
and inevitable than for men, with many wayward 
desires and indolent tendencies, to excuse them- 
selves from foresight and energy by some ungrounded 
trust in God. With the present stern and unyielding 
administration of natural law, there is yet much re- 
liance on good luck, good fortune, and providential in- 
tervention. The power and office of prayer we shall 
discuss later, we only now remark that this stern 
force of causal connections, this frown of law, are 
needed to prevent prayer's becoming the pack-horse 



RESEMBLANCE NOT THE SOLE LAW OF THOUGHT. 97 

of the lazy and imbecile. The possibility of work, 
the necessity of work, and the reward of work, are 
found in the stated connection of cause and effect. 
Through it, we know what we may do, under what 
conditions, and how far our doing will be effective. 
We know what we must do, or suffer the punishment' 
of vagabond powers. We know what rewards are 
ready to crown our labor, and to unite the irksome 
entrance of toil to the glad exit of success. The 
cogency of this discipline cannot be abated one iota 
without immediate degeneracy ; without loss to that 
strength of will, that keenness of thought, that sobri- 
ety of feeling, which are now the means of success. 

Not only is the universe a middle ground of labor 
between man and God, it is a middle term of thought. 
Revelation does do nothing, and could do but little, 
to contradict the lessons of the divine character and 
government given under the creative hand and seal 
of God. If there are unchangeable purposes in. God ; 
if there are straight lines of law ; if his moral gov- 
ernment involves grave responsibilities, and strange, 
momentous liabilities ; if indolence and ignorance are 
not to be screened from both rebuke and punishment, 
a foreshadowing of these truths must be found in the 
physical world. The fixedness and stability of cau- 
sation, therefore, undergird the material world as by 
a divine foreordination, for a purpose wise in its con- 
ception and faithful in its execution. If coherence, 
consistency, progress have been thus secured in the 
outside world, coming up from the dawn of geologic 
time to the present, varied development and comple- 
tion of his labor, a like coherence, consistency, pro- 



CjO SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

gress are reflected on the moral purposes of God, and 
transferred from his lower to his higher Kingdom 
of Grace. If he was not stinted in time, or limited 
in resources under the one fixed law of causes, but 
brought forth from the merest germ of nebulous, 
chaotic force, this present world, no more, we are 
taught, will he be embarrassed and baffled by the 
law of liberty in man, in bringing forward his second, 
his spiritual work of creation. If there were fluctu- 
ation, change, uncertainty in the work already done, 
then might we anticipate like fickleness and feeble- 
ness in the future ; but now the outside world, in its 
unyielding laws and steady growth, is a purpose of 
adamant, an unchangeable truth between us and God, 
a key of iron, working between guards of iron, open- 
ing the door upon his foreordained purposes, his im- 
perishable undertakings. Moreover, only thus could 
any final causes, any ends enter into the conception 
of the universe. Motives, objects proposed, are de- 
pendent on sufficient means for their execution, and 
are rendered rational, intelligible by the presence of 
such means. The plans of God give rise to a settled 
relation of means to ends, and, in turn, are expressed, 
revealed to us by this relation. What is done, stead- 
ily done by natural law, thus expounds the divine 
purpose, and gives us the design of our Heavenly 
Father. 

It is not strange, that a positive philosophy that 
struggles against causes should still more resist final 
causes, and stigmatize those inquiries by which we 
forecast the drift of things, discern the ends around 
which they seem to rally, as futile, abortive, fanci- 



RESEMBLANCE NOT THE SOLE LAW OF THOUGHT. 99 

ful. The mind naturally pushes its questions of 
explanation in two directions, backward and forward. 
It asks, whence a thing comes, when, where and 
how it was made ; and also whither it goes, for what 
purpose it was so made. These inquiries are mutu- 
ally dependent. If the one is legitimate, then is the 
other. If we may ask how a thing is made, we may 
also ask why it was made ; if we may inquire whence 
it comes, we may also seek whither it goes : if we 
may search for causes, we may also for final causes. 
The rationality in its conception, in the making of 
a thing, implies a like rationality in its destination. 
Indeed, its purpose is locked up in its construction, 
and may be sought for there. The plans of God 
come forth to us in their settled methods of execu- 
tion ; and in inquiring into causes we unconsciously 
see their drift, that which they accomplish and were 
intended to accomplish. 

This law of causation, now seen to be so funda- 
mental in the universe, so of the very essence of 
things, has given rise easily to two errors. It has 
been thought to exclude miracles. It rather makes 
way for miracles. How can there be a miracle, ex- 
cept there is a law to set aside, a rule to overrule ? 
If there is no firmness in the law, then there is no 
glory in the miracle. Indeed, coherence, cogency, 
are the conditions of the magnificent, sovereign ex- 
ception ; just as critical laws and established tactics, 
in their general sufficiency and soundness, cast lustre 
on the solitary exceptions which genius discovers to 
them. Both the condition and the reason of miracles 
are found in the rigidity of the law. The natural law 



IOO SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

is rigid for the reasons dwelt upon, but being rigid, 
it is liable to disguise freedom, and strangle personal- 
ity. Hence, there come at once an opportunity and 
a reason for breaking through this web of law, when 
it threatens to become a veil between God and his 
children, for parting it, not rending it asunder, that 
it may be seen to be but a veil, on whose historic 
folds the divine, creative achievements are slowly 
wrought by the hidden hand of God. 

Another like and more inclusive danger to phil- 
osophy has appeared in connection with causation. 
The mind, so constantly, so protractedly, so pleas- 
urably occupied in tracing forces, and in the expla- 
nations which these afford, has been liable to deem 
this the true type of all thought, and to regard no 
solutions as satisfactory which do not eventuate in 
this connection. Hence, liberty, the freedom of the 
will, has come to be looked on as a species of fortuity, 
hardly to be recognized in sound thought. Physicists 
have established their methods and conceptions in 
the region of physical facts, and have not been able 
even to understand anything which transcends them. 
Hence philosophy, metaphysics, have been compelled 
to accept, in detraction, the appellative, transcend- 
ental ; as if all that lies beyond physics were a region 
of moonshine. This view we hope later to do some- 
thing to correct, and, while we accept causation as a 
corner-stone of the structure, to excuse ourselves 
from regarding it as the very temple itself, its pene- 
tralia and worship. 

We will conclude this lecture by pointing out the 
necessity of a correct, thoroughly causal notion of 



RESEMBLANCE NOT THE SOLE LAW OF THOUGHT. 10 1 

causation itself, in order to the plausibility even of 
this attack on liberty. Those who deny the validity 
of the idea of cause and effect, probably all of them, 
reject liberty, and unite the two classes of phenomena 
under the explanation of fixed antecedents. Yet 
what is more obvious than that inductively, by ob- 
servation, no settled, unvarying sequences can be es- 
tablished as a clearly recognized fact between motives 
and actions ; between circumstances and the fruits 
of them in conduct. Every one sometimes disap- 
points us, and few indeed expect men to respond to 
every change of external conditions with the exact- 
itude of a steam-engine, or an electric battery. The 
argument against liberty has always tacitly proceeded 
on an assumption of a certain force in motives, of 
their causal connection with the effects suitable to 
them ; and Leen attended with the further assump- 
tion, that, on any unusual change of conduct, there 
has been a corresponding change in the inner hold 
of the motives on the feelings. Now, if it turn out 
that there is no such causal relation, no grapple of 
actions by persuasives, the opponent of liberty is 
thrown back upon the much more difficult proof of 
fixed antecedents, to wit : that given circumstances 
are always followed by given actions. As the com- 
plete presentation of all that makes up circumstances, 
when the word is used in connection with choice, is 
impossible, and as the partial surveys of the condi- 
tions of human actions which are open to us, exhibit 
great variety and changeableness of results, very 
diverse actions following from circumstances closely 
allied, a plausible proof even against human freedom. 



102 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

on this ground becomes impracticable ; while a cur- 
sory inquiry seems to indicate that the relation be- 
tween antecedents and consequents, when conduct is 
concerned, is by no means so invariable as it is when 
we are dealing with purely physical forces, and thus 
to show that the connections are not of the same, k 
settled nature in the two cases. It is the secret 
force of the idea of causation, its tending to go be- 
yond its own field, and insinuate itself as the law of 
relation, of dependence, everywhere, that has wrought 
against human liberty ; and while, therefore, we reject 
the proofs of the necessitarian, we draw from his 
own doctrine this conclusion : that he at least should 
maintain a firm hold on causes, since it is on this 
ground that he accepts as certain a change in the 
force of motives, when no visible occasion for it, or 
trace of it, is seen. If the causal idea, by its own 
force, is so to wed the motive to the action as to 
imply a change of the one on every change of the 
other, and to make us willing to believe in an altered 
efficiency in inducements which remain externally the 
same, then must the notion be held in its integrity, 
not refined away into simple antecedence. Thus 
do we bear with us everywhere the secret laws of 
thought, seizing the explanations they offer. When 
causation has been theoretically rejected, for matter, 
it is often restored for mind, and rooted up in its true 
field, is surreptitiously planted in another. We are 
constantly reminded that it is the first labor of thought, 
the true province of philosophy, to assign to their own 
field and phenomena the regulative ideas of the mind, 
and to maintain their primitive authority there : to 



RESEMBLANCE NOT THE SOLE LAW OF THOUGHT. 103 

set up each faculty, an autocrat in its own realms ; 
the nose for odors, the eye for sights, the memory for 
recollections, the intuitive reason, in its diverse func- 
tions, for furnishing the just connections of thought. 
We thus stand where the hand of God has put us, 
where it has lifted us, that we may overlook his 
works, physical and spiritual ; that we may see the 
things beneath our feet, about and above us, the ex- 
cellent things into which we have been born, the 
heavenly things into which we are to be born, as the 
soul, breaking its chrysalis, shall come to the full in- 
heritance of its enlarged powers. There is nothing 
so damaging to God's grace and our immortality as 
not to use the eyes he gives us, as not to climb, 
with mingled faith and vision, the slant sunbeams 
of truth. 

We have now directed attention to these points 
in connection with causation : first, its primitive 
character; second, its exclusive application to phys- 
ical events ; third, its absolute necessity for their 
apprehension ; fourth, the impossibility of substitu- 
ting any other idea for it ; and fifth, that by means 
of it a common ground of activity between us and 
God is secured, 



LECTURE V. 

MATTER ; ITS EXISTENCE AND NATURE. 

Having finished the discussion of cause and effect 
— the law both of force and thought, which applies 
in the physical world — we wish, before passing to 
the second correlative branch of knowledge, whose 
events transpire under the light of other ideas, to use 
this notion in the present lecture in an inquiry into 
the existence and nature of matter. 

Matter is the seat and source of all forces. Forces, 
in it and through it, play on to each other, and the 
point of departure and return in their causal inter- 
action, is ever some form of matter. The nature 
and certainty of our knowledge of the material world 
have constituted one of the most protracted and per- 
plexed of philosophical discussions. Many have so 
far missed the proof as to have lost hold of this ma- 
terial side of our being, and to have cast the concep- 
tions of the ear and the eye about the mind's own 
activity, as clouds encompass the earth, springing 
from it and returning to it, hovering in airy spaces, 
absorbed into invisible vapor, condensed again into 
visible form as the forces from beneath and above 
play upon them. The great difficulty in explaining 
the perceptive processes of mind, as indeed every 
other process, has lain in an oversight of the mind's 
original activity ; its unobtrusive and constant con- 
tribution, to every act of comprehension, of the prin- 



MATTER ; ITS EXISTENCE AND NATURE. 105 

ciples, the laws of that act. Sensation, reflection, 
memory, are prominent, salient forms of activity, 
but that mental rendering of the rational conditions 
under which they take place, which seem rather to be 
pervasive qualities of each act than any direct addi- 
tion thereto — this has continually escaped attention, 
and presented the processes of mind in a confused, 
crippled and insufficient way, through the loss of 
that which is most peculiar to them. Thus, in the 
act of perception, the part which the notion of causa- 
tion plays being wholly overlooked, or inadequately 
apprehended, has left the proof of the existence of 
matter unsatisfactory, and has led to very untenable 
statements of what the mind reaches in perception. 

The first and spontaneous impression in reference 
to sensations and perceptions seems to have been, 
that they lie, as purely mental phenomena, wholly 
within the mind itself, and therefore, do not directly, 
of their own sufficiency, put us in connection with 
matter, as a physical existence forever outside con- 
sciousness. An oversight of the mind's necessary 
action under the notion of cause and effect, thus 
later led to the conclusion, that if the mind does not 
directly transcend itself in sensation,, does not break 
out of the charmed circle of its own states and acts, 
does not penetrate to a world beyond itself, it has all 
the forms and the conditions of its activity within 
itself; and dealing with these, strictly its own phe- 
nomena, has the full complement of existence without 
any outside world whatsoever. Admittedly, all that 
the mind directly knows, all that is permeated by 
its own consciousness, are its own states and acts. 
5* 



106 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

These, therefore, granted to it, render, it is said, the 
belief in an outside world unnecessary. Its sensations, 
in which, at first sight, the mind seems to reach some- 
thing other than itself, being nevertheless, on further 
thought, shown to be wholly within itself, give it the 
entire material of knowledge, aside from any agency 
of matter ; and matter, therefore, as superfluous, drops 
away. Hamilton, and many others with him, pushed 
by these and like considerations, have affirmed that 
matter is "directly reached in perception, and that 
therein is found our proof of its existence. If by 
perception were meant the entire, complex act of the 
mind in connection therewith, both the effect in the 
mind which is due to an external object, and the 
mind's inferential grasp of this object, then we should 
heartily assent to the statement. We look upon per- 
ception as a wonderfully complicated and rapid pro- 
cess, as adding to a first susceptibility much acquired 
skill, and compacting many impressions and judg- 
ments into a penetrative and powerful act of mind, 
in which it especially displays its constructive and 
independent strength. Under the notion of causa- 
tion, and by the teaching of protracted experience, 
impressions, impotent in themselves, are transformed 
into far-reaching and firm conclusions — conclusions 
so firm and far-reaching, that they seem to be lodged 
in the very organ of sense itself; and a landscape 
which we have constructed out of scarcely more ma- 
terial than Aladdin found requisite for his palaces, 
seems to be seen and known and felt by us through 
all its solid substance. We do not understand Ham- 
ilton, however, in his doctrine of perception to refer 



matter; its existence and nature. 107 

to this inferential, complex nature of the act ; but 
rather to conceive the pure perceptive process as a 
direct and simple grasp of matter by mind, a sufficient 
and ultimate proof of its existence. To this, we de- 
cidedly object ; believing as we do, that the pregnant 
idea on which the existence as well as the nature of 
the physical world rest, is that of cause and effect. 
That Hamilton is to be understood as affirming this 
direct knowledge of matter in the perceptive element 
alone of perception, is clear from the following pas- 
sage : " Suppose that the total object of consciousness 
in perception is equal to 12 ; and suppose that the ex- 
ternal reality contributes 6, the material sense 3, and 
the mind 3 : this may enable you to form some rude 
conjecture of the nature of the object of perception." 
Plainly, Hamilton supposes that to the extent of 6, 
one half of the phenomenon in that state of mind 
which is the basis of perception, matter finds entrance 
to consciousness, and is intellectually permeated by 
it. This is not the doctrine, but quite opposed to it, 
that the pure mental state and product present in 
perception is made the necessary condition of the 
mind's inferentially reaching the external world, is 
the salient effect whence the mind strikes outward to 
the cause, and, in its further explanation and expan- 
sion, constructs the visible universe. 

Examine sensation, perception, in each of the 
senses, commencing with the feebler. What alliance 
is there between a given odor and a rose or a gera- 
nium ? How totally experimental is the reference of 
the one to the other ! How completely we fail to 
reach any matter, even the slightest particle, through 



108 9 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

this sense, believing indeed in the presence of such 
floating particles only through our idea of cause. 
Almost as manifest is the same fact in the case of 
taste. A flavor has no likeness to any form of mat- 
ter ; no power directly to disclose matter. We learn 
to refer distinct flavors to their several material sour- 
ces ; but we do this only by protracted trial, and 
then may find a decided taste on the tongue induced 
by disease, or by an electric current, not referable 
to any object. So far does this sense fail to dis- 
close real outside existence. On sound, we need not 
pause. Obviously, the thing heard, the source of 
the sound, is remote and inferred. In the case of 
touch, the object lies wholly outside the organ, in 
no way penetrates it, and can constitute no part, 
much less one-half part, of the sensation, which con- 
sciousness permeates, and, by permeation, reveals. 
Close all other senses and deal with this alone, and 
the inferential nature of the results are quite obvious. 
We cannot certainly say in every tactile sensation, that 
anything has touched the organ. Some prickling 
of the finger-ends themselves may explain it ; or, the 
fact of contact being settled, how explorative and 
protracted must be the touch to lead us to a tolerably 
safe conclusion as to the real object which has occa- 
sioned the impression. How many things are smooth, 
how many hard, how many tickle or burn the skin ! 
If, now, we infer that the fabric in our hand is velvet, 
because of its softness, is it not equally obvious that 
it is to us a fabric, a something, because it responds 
to a sensation ? What is the particular inference but 
a specific form of the general inference ? If we 



matter; its existence and nature. 109 

reach the idea of velvet through softness, do we not 
the general notion of matter, through the general 
fact of sensation ? Most obviously we do. 

Passing to sight, the most difficult to analyze, as it 
is the most complex of perceptive processes, we ask, 
What is it that we see ? As we commonly use lan- 
guage, undoubtedly, the remote objects, the moon 
and the stars, the fields and the trees, the walls and 
the windows. Popular speech includes in the word, 
see, all that amplifies and completes vision. We say, 
confidently say, that we have seen a man, when the 
eye has actually fallen on no part of his person, but 
he has been recognized by his garments and walk 
simply. That portion of the complete act of sight 
to which Hamilton wishes to draw attention, and to 
affirm in it a direct knowledge of matter, is the purely 
organic part occasioned by the light. " But in the 
second place, what is meant by the external object 
perceived ? Nothing can be conceived more ridiculous 
than the opinion of philosophers in regard to this. 
For example, it has been curiously held — and Reid is 
no exception — that, in looking at the sun, moon, or any 
other object of sight, we are, on the one doctrine, ac- 
tually conscious of these distant objects ; or, on the 
other, that these distant objects are those really rep- 
resented in the mind. Nothing can be more absurd : 
we perceive, through no sense, aught external but 
what is in immediate relation and in immediate con- 
tact with its organ ; and that is true which Democ- 
ritus of old asserted, that all our senses are only 
modifications of touch. Through the eye we per- 
ceive nothing but the rays of light in relation to, and 



110 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

in contact with, the retina ; what we add to this per- 
ception must not be taken into account." 

Do we then directly know the retina, and the 
image on it in vision ? Not at all. Our entire knowl- 
edge of the structure and relations of the eye is an 
after-knowledge, picked up itself through independent- 
perception, not disclosed primitively in those very 
perceptions of which this organ is, from the outset, a 
means. We know nothing of the ear, through hear- 
ing ; of the eye, through seeing ; of the brain, through 
thinking. The brain must be seen to understand 
its structure, and the eye disclosed to a second eye 
before even the existence of the retina and the image 
it holds can be known. In all this discussion, the 
body is just as much outside of the mind, its exist- 
ence, form and functions to be learned by the mind, 
our senses in turn exploring each other, as any por- 
tion of matter whatever. We may say, that the 
likeness between the picture on the retina and the 
external objects it presents, is philosophically unfor- 
tunate, as it leads us to think that the mind knows 
this image in some way, for what it is in itself, and is 
thus easily united by it to the corresponding external 
fact. We suppose that the connection between the 
state of the retina and what is sight to the mind, is 
just as inscrutable, and, so to speak, arbitrary, as be- 
tween odor and the contact of the floating effluvia 
with the lining of the nostril. If it should be shown, 
as has been suggested, that the optic nerve is actually 
affected in vision by the different degrees of heat 
which belong to the different shades of color and 
light on the retina, that the perceptive surface is 



matter; its existence AND NATURE. Ill 

below the screen which receives the images, and not 
identical with it, we do not imagine that the philoso- 
phical bearings of the question would be the least 
altered ; though this immediate knowledge of the 
image on the retina would thereby become a palp- 
able absurdity. *Even now it is scarcely less. Double 
and inverted images render to the mind a single and 
correct impression ; because these images are not 
the direct objects, but the indirect means, of vision. 
Press aside the axis of one eye, and without altering 
the image, sight becomes double. 

The extent to which vision is made up of judg- 
ments has become more and more evident. The 
form, distance, and size of an object are matters of 
immediate and rapid inference from the data given 
by the eye. Hence it is, that the mind supplies, in 
the recesses of a mirror, the exact position and rela- 
tions of objects which do not directly meet the eye ; 
and it sometimes fails, when the reflection is very 
perfect, to distinguish the image as an image, from 
that which it represents. If, then, the size and forms 
of things are matters of judgment in this sense, how 
plain is it, that the objects themselves, known only un- 
der these essential features, are also a thing inferred. 
Nor do we, any the more, know directly the light, 
the intervening agent between us and visible objects. 
Indeed, that color is due to the light, and not inher- 
ent in the flower, the cloud, the shell is a scientific 
discovery consequent upon the resolution of light 
in the prism. The method in which the mind em- 
ploys the organs of vision is evident from many illus- 
trations. ) Take, as an example, the following: A 



112 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

portion of the landscape, somewhat remote, is caught 
sight of through a seam or crevice, like that which 
separates the inner edge of a half-open door from its 
casement. The eyes, at the distance of a few feet 
from the opening, view each a distinct portion of the 
remote objects. The two parts of the view are thus 
separated by an invisible interval. If one eye is 
now closed, and the sight concentrated through the 
other, this portion will still remain distinct on the 
re-opening of the eye, while the part which this eye 
is ready to add, will scarcely, if at all, be discerned. 
By reversing the process, a like prominence may be 
given to the objects seen through the eye, before 
closed. If now we strive to look equally through 
both eyes at once, we shall see two crevices separated 
by a narrow strip of wood, made up of the opposite 
edges of the door and of the casement, meeting in the 
middle. This and like examples show, first, that the 
mind uses the eyes, and is not mechanically subject 
to their impressions ; since it subordinates one to 
the other, and unites visible objects as suits its con- 
venience, around a centre of its own selection. It 
also shows, that when it submits itself simply to the 
impressions on the organs, these often distort the 
facts, are emphatically fictions, and wait the correc- 
tion of varied conditions of judgment. Not even 
mere color can be shown to be exclusively of external 
origin. Before the closed eyes there is oftentimes a 
play of distinct colors which have no connection with 
outside objects. The centre of the now obscure field 
of vision is occupied by colors which come and go in 
distinct succession. 



MATTER ; ITS EXISTENCE AND NATURE. I 1 3 

This doctrine of direct perception seems also to be 
untenable, when we contemplate the movement in 
the organs of sense, which is the ■ condition of the 
mind's action, which calls it forth. This movement is 
inward rather than outward, while the activity of the 
thoughts seems to be expended purely in inferences. 
The sound — that is the motion which is its condition 
— enters the ear, passes through its various media of 
communication, affects the nerve, and by it, as a mod- 
ified impression, reaches the brain, where it seems to 
find arrest, and to wait that use and interpretation 
which the mind makes of it. Thus is it also with 
the light. It creeps in with modified movement to 
this centre of sensibility. Every portion of the chain 
is essential, and it finds attachment and completion 
in the cerebrum alone. Of any outer movement of 
comprehension along the organs of sense consequent 
on this in-going impression, we have no proof what- 
ever. The point of final solution and transition, 
therefore, seems to be found in the brain, and the 
ultimate thing apprehended and interpreted is a ner- 
vous affection, a modified state of a nerve centre. 

Two things, then, are evident : first, from our own 
consciousness, that the mind does not, in sight, in 
hearing, directly know those nerve conditions which 
are the final occasions of perception : and, moreover, 
that if it did, it could not by them directly discern 
an external world. If we affirm the whole nervous 
system to be an organ of perception, the argument 
is not essentially altered, it is still dealing with its 
own subjective impressions. The motion is inward, 
becoming as its latest form, the form in which it is a 



114 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

condition of perception, a play of nerve matter. This 
last step is the connecting link with mind, and is ut- 
terly unlike the object which occasions it. We reach 
the same conclusion also from the surprising way in 
which the mind substitutes, under protracted trial, 
one sense for another. Ordinarily, the eye is the 
great portal of knowledge. Its double leaves stand 
wide in all our waking hours, and the pomp of earth, 
and the glory of the heavens, find ample entrance 
there. Indeed, compared with it, any other sense is 
a bastion wicket, turning reluctlantly on rusty hinges 
to admit a single messenger on some odd occasion. 
Let, however, these front gates of the soul be swung 
shut forever, and the clamorous thoughts be forced 
to seek another exit, and, with strange skill, they ex- 
plore the forgotten, over-grown path of touch ; soon 
make of it a highway, till half the facts that had 
trooped daily up to the entrance of vision find easy 
access here. Engineering, generalship, the most dif- 
ficult and ranging of out-door employments, have 
been brought within the scope of those perfectly 
blind. Now, this sudden elevation of a sense into a 
new position, shows at once how much our percep- 
tions are dependent on the mind's cultivation, and 
how feeble and barren they are in themselves. How 
we grope and sink into an attitude of helpless, almost 
hopeless, inquiry, when suddenly blinded, yet, how 
this passes away under familiarity, till in rare instan- 
ces the unfortunate one seems marvellously endowed 
again, penetrating the outside world with an aston- 
ishing keenness of perception ! 

Forms of delirium and mental aberration show 



matter; its existence and nature. 115 

also in a striking way the method of the mind's 
action. A physical derangement of the nervous 
media of thought and perception is attended, in 
these cases, with a firm belief in the immediate, vis- 
ible existence of objects wholly unreal. This fact 
shows that the mind does not directly know the char- 
acter of the nervous states that condition its action, 
and that it projects and constructs the impressions 
consequent thereon, into a world so real, that it does 
not for a moment doubt its existence. If, then, the 
visionary conceptions, evoked by abnormal nervous 
states, are apparently valid to the perceptions, how 
plain is it that the normal, perceptive act turns equally 
on physical conditions unknown to it as such, and 
made the grounds of a construction purely mental ? 
Subjective states, every way unlike the material ob- 
jects and media which occasion them, are used by 
the mind as the conditions of its perceptions, and it 
is so governed by these that it cannot go back of 
them, even when they contradict its healthy, daily 
experience. 

Moreover, if we reflect on the relation of mental 
phenomena to consciousness, we shall come to the 
same conclusion, that perception is an indirect, not a 
direct, process. From this source has come the bur- 
den of that general conviction among philosophers, 
that the mind cannot directly know matter. All the 
states and activities of mind have one invariable con- 
dition, consciousness. We are alike conscious of an 
inference and of a sensation. Therefore, so far as 
direct knowledge extends, consciousness must ex- 
tend, since nothing can be in the mind's states and 



Il6 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

activities which is not permeated by consciousness ; 
and nothing which is not of its own states and acts 
can be otherwise than indirectly, inferentially known. 
Indeed, this is precisely what is meant by indirect, 
as contrasted with direct, primitive knowledge ; that 
the last lies wholly within the mind, while the former 
inferentially, in thought, transcends the mind by virtue 
of premises present to it. If it be said, that we are 
simply begging the question, in saying that percep- 
tion is not direct knowledge, we answer, What other 
definition are you prepared to give of direct and in- 
direct knowledge than that the one does not tran- 
scend the mind, and the other does ? And, if you 
affirm that in this sense, perception is still direct 
knowledge, we ask, How can it be unless the phenom- 
ena of matter as perceived, are then and there, phe- 
nomena of mind, permeated by consciousness, taken 
within the precincts of the soul ? Thus the very de- 
sire to establish an outside world in direct percep- 
tion, identifies its phenomena with those of the mind, 
issues in idealism, and abolishes matter altogether. 
Matter only remains matter, with which to make an 
outside world, on condition of leaving it, in all its 
forms and forces beyond the mind, beyond conscious- 
ness, there to be reached in a secondary, inferential 
way. When we speak of perception, in popular lan- 
guage, as direct knowledge, we do so on the ground 
of its ruling, initial, characteristic element, not as 
excluding from it all inferences. 

Having now established, as we believe, the proof 
of the existence of matter as resting on the causal 
action of the mind, leading it to distinguish its vari- 



matter; its existence and nature. 117 

ous states from one another, and to refer them to 
distinct sources, we pass to the second question, 
What is matter? We answer, It is in its distinct 
elements, permanent forms of force ; it is force. 
Here we shall fortunately agree with many physicists, 
whose society we seem scarcely to have cultivated. 
The conclusion that matter is force, is pressed upon 
us, as the simplest one open to us, as the one that 
rests without redundance of supposition on the proof. 
All that we know of matter, is its power to effect 
changes ; are its phenomena, the appearances to 
which it gives rise. These, therefore, must be re- 
ferred to a source or cause : and as to us, they only 
evince force, force becomes their sufficient explana- 
tion. We are to bear in mind that this force, the 
constant source of phenomena, is, in itself, perfectly 
unphenomenal, and, therefore, cannot be handled by 
the imagination. We cannot conceive it, and stri- 
ving to conceive it, we immediately transcend it by 
investing it with some of those appearances to which 
it gives rise, as effects, but which are not of its very 
essence. When, therefore, .the mind gives to each 
molecule a material centre, it is only a trick of the 
imagination, striving to restore in minutiae what it 
has lost in mass, likening the infinitesimal part to the 
whole of which it is a portion, and presenting it under 
the same phenomenal dress. The imagination is the 
faculty that chiefly embarrasses us in accepting mat- 
ter as pure force, and it is the eye that principally 
rules the imagination in its belief in a stubborn, ma- 
terial centre, as an ultimate product of analysis. 
The words, green, brown, black, have a meaning for 



I 1 8 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

the imagination : the words, pure force, that is, force 
aside from any visible appearance, any motion it is 
occasioning, any work it is doing, have no meaning 
to the imagination ; that is, can be handled by it 
under no image. Hence, it is uneasy and restless 
under so thin, visionary a conception, and wishes 
a world of more palpable imagery. This it gives 
to itself when it re-habilitates molecules in sensible 
properties, and says that the centres of matter, that 
is visible, stubborn outside matter, are also material, 
that is, visible, tangible, unconcessive, under the sen- 
ses. This they, doubtless, would be under organs 
sufficiently acute to reach them, since, to such organs, 
they would give rise to new phenomena, revealing, 
indeed, their existence, but not disclosing their na- 
ture, as simple centres of force. Thus, exactly, the 
child's ball is known to him by hardness and color, 
though the very nature and force of its being are 
still hidden and invisible. What we say, then, is, 
that to the reason, which can alone deal with the ul- 
timate nature of matter, and not to the senses, or to 
their echo in the second degree, the imagination, 
matter is force — the permanent power to do what it 
does, to make the impressions which belong to it. 
Nothing can be simpler, or more unavoidable, than 
this conclusion. It is axiomatic under the notion of 
causation. Any other conclusion gives to matter 
more than the phenomena require. 

What, then, do we know of the nature of this force, 
with which the mind sustains as a substance, a per- 
manent existence, equally the changeable appearances, 
and the more abiding forms of matter ? Plainly, 



matter; its existence and nature. ng 

nothing, save the naked fact that it gives rise in each 
case to a given class of phenomena. Its effects pre- 
cisely measure and express it. They are the form of 
its being, and the whole of its phenomenal being,, at 
least so far as we are concerned. They are as essential 
to it as it is to them. To know all that a force can do, 
is to know the force, since this is what makes it to be 
a force, and defines it as one. We may, indeed, assert 
the possibility of other kinds of sensations in addi- 
tion to those known to us, and imagine new impres- 
sions made by the various forms of matter in other 
organs of perception, but we thereby get no new 
view of the nature of force, since, if we were pos- 
sessed of a half thousand, instead of a half dozen, 
senses, they would all only render phenomena, and 
leave the essential nature and being of matter unap- 
proached. Indeed, it may be questioned whether 
this asking after the quality and essence of matter, is 
not to us an essentially deceptive inquiry, since the 
only possible answer we can conceive of, would be 
the giving of further phenomena attendant upon it, 
and these, however multiplied, would still leave the 
very force unknown. Every form of force is defined 
to us in the senses to which it appeals, and the effects 
wrought in them are necessarily its final definition. 
To one who should have eyes only, color would be 
the entire result which force could compass in making 
itself known, in declaring the nature of its being. 
If one sense after another were added, hearinar, taste, 
touch, new circles of presentation would be present, 
and a given kind of matter or force would show itself 
as that capable of accomplishing a certain aggregate 



120 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

of results. That is to say, the force is in the effects, 
and the effects are so of, and over, the force ; that we 
know all that is to be known of it, both in the mode 
and measure of its being, in knowing these. It is an 
impractical, if not an absurd, inquiry, to ask for any- 
thing more. Our senses are present for the precise 
purpose of disclosing the material world ; that is, the 
effects of that world, not its intrinsic, unphenomenal 
nature. We may fancy as an illustration of the at- 
titude of matter toward mind, the presence of a spirit 
seeking to make itself known. It strives to assail 
the senses, affect the touch, make a noise, to startle 
the eye. On no other condition can it disclose itself, 
and the phenomena it is thought to occasion become 
immediately our notion of it — a sheeted ghost, usurp- 
ing the midnight hour. 

If now the mind seems ready to revert to the posi- 
tion of the materialist, and to inquire, Why have any 
force at all, any cause, if we only know it in and by 
its effects, and these are its entire measure ? we can 
only answer, Because the mind persists in assuming 
it, and if we check its reasoning, dissolve into noth- 
ing its connections here, we loosen the bonds of all 
thought, and find ourselves afloat on liquid, facile, 
fickle appearances, with no harbor nor anchorage. 
If we are to deny the chain of connection at its con- 
clusion, deny it at the outset, and ceasing at once to 
seek for causes, cease to either ask or to render the 
reasons dependent on them. Forego all discussion on 
physical things ; as a mere repetition of consecutive 
facts can be no ground on which to infer a future 
sequence, unless one cause is at least granted, to wit : 



matter; its existence and NATURE. 121 

that the often-renewed experiences of the mind incline 
it to the expectation of like relations. In brief, we must 
accept this intangible cause, or the locks of the head 
are shorn, and our rational strength departs from us. 
If such be the only possible knowledge of forces, 
and yet such also the absolute necessity of admitting 
them, it is further plain, that the physicist, in gen- 
eralizing all things into force, has reached a verbal, 
rather than an actual, unity. Many forces, not one 
force, is the just conception of matter. We have, so 
far as now appears, at least as many distinct, per- 
manently diverse forms of force as we have elements, 
or kinds of matter. Sixty-three irresolvable elements 
— elements that present specific and unchangeable 
properties, necessitate the belief in as many forms 
of force, of which these are the ultimate expression. 
To say that all matter is force, therefore, is not to 
say that it is identical in being, nor in the least to 
wipe away those distinctions in kind, which stub- 
bornly linger in experience, no matter how trying 
the processes of dissolution which mechanical force, 
heat, electricity and chemical affinity supply. More- 
over, force has other peculiar forms of existence more 
detached, general and independent than those which 
pertain to the very essence of matter, and give it a 
separate, ultimate, uniform, molecular character in 
each of its elements. Mechanical force, the forces 
of cohesion, of attraction, of crystallization and of 
chemical affinity, electric, thermal and vital forces are 
of this nature. It has been shown, under what is 
called the correlation of forces, that some of these 
are intimately united ; a further correspondence and 
6 



122 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

equivalence may be revealed, but their entire identity 
is far from yet appearing. A portion of them at least 
replace each other in definite quantities. A given 
amount of chemical affinity or force, disappears on 
the production of a given amount of galvanic force ; 
this, in turn, replaces a fixed equivalent of mechan- 
ical force, itself capable of a further exchange in heat. 
Reversing the process, heat, as in the engine, may 
be turned into power ; power by friction may be re- 
placed with electricity, and electricity may break in 
on chemical compounds, securing new adjustments 
of chemical force. Experiments in the correspond- 
ence of forces, however interesting in themselves, by 
no means establish their identity of being. Differ- 
ences still remain ; for instance, between mechanical 
and thermal and chemical forces in their manifesta- 
tions ; and till these are removed or explained, we 
must recognize a corresponding difference in the 
forces themselves. If mechanical forces act on mas- 
ses, thermal forces on molecules, and chemical forces 
on atoms, this, nevertheless, is a difference, and the 
ground of it must be referred in each case to the 
force itself, till further knowledge gives us another 
explanation. The fact that mechanical force calls 
forth heat and disappears in doing it, no more iden- 
tifies the two, than does the fact that volition issues, 
first in muscular motion and then in sound, establish 
the oneness of the three. Indeed, the permanent 
fact of their constant, separable manifestation, even 
to the senses, still remains, and is a sufficient ground, 
both in language and thought, for their distinction. 
Either in the very forces themselves, or in some other 



matter; its existence and nature. 123 

forces that condition their action, there is a reason 
for this difference of results, and therefore at some 
point, somewhere, diversity of agencies must be ac- 
cepted so long as diversity of effects appears. We 
shall not reach identical, uniform force, till we reach 
identical, uniform results. Disagreements demand 
explanation as much as agreements, and an absolute 
oneness of causes would preclude all variety in the 
products, would shut us off from creation. Take 
such a force as that of the attraction of gravitation, 
and how peculiar are its manifestations. It is omni- 
present, yet varies in intensity everywhere according 
to a fixed rule. It needs no media apparently for 
its diffusion or action, but seizes its object with a 
specified power everywhere. It is a vacuum to itself, 
sending cross-lines of force from planet to planet 
which do not in the least collide with each other. 
It suffers no exhaustion by exercise. The weight 
that has plunged down in headlong descent, leaves a 
path behind it unswept of power, capable instantly, 
along its whole extent, of presenting like action on 
every other body. The momentum, which it itself 
has acquired, seems unsubtracted from the great 
atmosphere of force which has closed up around it. 
The motion of masses, mainly secured by the attrac- 
tion of gravitation, does not in the least modify or 
abate the force which gives rise to it, no matter how 
much is lost by friction or expended in collision. It 
is penetrable in all directions, yet puts its tariff, its 
additions and subtractions, its variable scale of condi- 
tions, on every force expended in space. At least, 
these are some of the properties of this attraction, if 



124 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

we conceive it as emanating equally at all times from 
the body which is its centre. If we regard it as called 
forth only by the actual presence of another body, its 
features are scarcely less striking. Its quantity, on 
this supposition, is variable every instant, and is ca- 
pable within itself of indefinite increase or diminution, ' 
according as the objects which exert it are near to, 
or remote from, each other. The approach of the 
earth to the sun would rapidly increase the absolute 
quantity of this force ; its departure, correspondingly 
reduce it. On any supposition, it is sufficiently plain 
— the point we wish to make — that forces are far 
from identical, are the lodgments of diverse forms of 
power, and that the universe is no more a unit to the 
understanding than to the senses. 

What are the possibilities, the suggestions of this 
theory of matter in its relations to God, to a Creative 
and Providential Agent ? The nature of these forces, 
and their relations to each other, by which they unite 
to make up a harmonious universe, would still remain 
as the first obvious proof of an All-wise and Efficient 
Disposer of them ; but the inquiry now urged is, 
whether there is anything in the very idea of force as 
the substratum of matter which effects the' argument 
for the being of a God. If there is anything in the 
notion of force that favors the idea of self-existence, 
of the eternity of matter, so far forth, the proof of the 
existence of God is weakened ; and the more so as 
these material forces ha^ their own law in them, and 
once granted in kind and quantity, themselves con- 
struct and maintain the world. The notion of force, 
physical force, is not of passivity, but of activity ; not 



matter; its existence and nature. 125 

of quiet endurance, but of permanent power. So far 
as forces are interchangeable, there is consumption 
on the one side, and increase on the other. There is 
change and transition between them, according to a 
definite law. This fact is not suggestive of ex- 
tended, immutable, indestructible, physical being, per- 
fectly finite and perfectly fixed ; tough and intracta- 
ble in its own narrow, stubborn, independent powers ; 
but rather of a free, facile agency, the force of a spir- 
itual, rational being, that is put forth, indeed, accord- 
ing to a measure, but shifts and varies its applications 
according to the exigency. In the fact that force is 
action, a constant expenditure, and not a silent endur- 
ance, we have suggestion of a Personal Source ; in 
the fact, that it is measured out in fixed proportions 
for intelligible ends, we have a still more certain in- 
dication of its reference ; and in the shifting, flexible 
methods of its applications, a further hint of its origin. 
If constant, yet variable, exertion toward intelligible 
ends does not give the mind a strong intimation of a 
Personal Being as its source, it is difficult to say what 
would do this ; yet, this is the nature of the forces 
which make up the material world about us. Fixed 
in elements, assuming new forms in every compound, 
exchangeable in part for each other, yet, accepting a 
new shape at every transfer, they exhibit the precise, 
pliant power of a rational spirit, seeking the ends 
prescribed to itself in settled, yet flexible, methods. 
Moreover, a further suggestion of a Personal Being 
is found in the relation which force, in our own 
experience, sustains to us. We are constantly con- 
trolling events, through force due in its form and des- 



126 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

tination to our own will. Our relation to matter is, 
indeed, very different from that of the creative mind ; 
yet it is such, nevertheless, as to carry the thoughts 
strongly over, in a reference of the activities about 
it, to God. Mechanical force alone is open to man. 
This he constantly generates. To be sure, he does i 
it by the consumption of other forces, but this does 
not alter the significance of the fact, that he enters 
himself the world of force, and learns to attribute it 
to mind. Mechanical force is conditioned on the 
existence of the forces of gravitation and cohesion. 
Without these there are no firm, stable bodies to 
receive or impart force. " Moreover, mechanical force 
is always the product of some other force. Some 
chemical, or thermal, or electric, changes, as in the 
human body, or the steam-engine, or the telegraph 
have preceded it ; or the force of gravitation, as in 
falling bodies, has called it forth. This secondary 
force alone is directly reached by human volition ; 
but in this fact, of the exertion by us of force, 
and in the familiar one, that the mechanical power 
so generated may be momentarily modified, and 
seems to come forth in a fresh, creative way, we re- 
ceive from our daily experience a new impulse in 
ascribing all force to God. When science discloses 
to us the fact, that the muscular force which we 
put forth, is attended with a consumption either in 
the blood, or in the muscle of other more concealed 
forces, embraced in chemical affinities, the strictly 
creative nature of the force-act disappears, and a 
wide chasm is thus revealed between our physical 
activities and those of God. We, indeed, see that 



ITS EXISTENCE AND NATURE. 127 

the relation of forces to the finite spirit is quite differ- 
ent from their- relation to the Infinite Spirit ; that 
the one only modifies what the other originates, yet 
the affinity of the two, spirit and force, remains un- 
shaken ; and the more so, as the inscrutable touch 
of the human will, by which it does reach physical 
forces, and does work among them, by which they 
become to it a perennial spring of potency in the 
world, is still ours, escaping the scrutiny of the vexed 
physicist. 

Force, then, by its own active, well-ordered, pliant 
nature, and by its close connection with the human 
will, bears with it an immediate suggestion of a Per- 
sonal Source. There have long been two theories on 
the. part of those who refer matter to God : one of 
second causes, another of immediate, direct causa- 
tion. The one gives a quasi independence to matter ; 
•the other refers it in momentary generation to God. 
This notion of force, on which physicists are so hap- 
pily and generally uniting, seems to us quite to favor 
the second as contrasted with the first, and, if rightly 
interpreted, to bring God much nearer to us, than some 
have thought him to be ; I may almost say, nearer 
than some have wished him to be. One of the most 
recently uttered creeds of an atheistic faith contained 
this doctrine of force, which, to us at least, would 
seem to be the very water-gate whereat God pours 
his being into the universe ; the very method and act 
of the letting down of his power upon it. If the 
swing of faith, in the case referred to, had been over 
to pantheism, it would have had plausibility, but to- 
wards atheism, it lacks even the color of argument. 



128 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

We have in the world, inexhaustible, variable, mar- 
vellously combined forces, that thread their way on- 
ward with infinite wisdom and unerring adaptations. 
What is this but the very presence of a rational spirit 
with us ? Matter as an indestructible, self-sufficient, 
stolid form of being, disappears, and a living power 
takes its place, coming forth instantly from the source 
of life ; momentarily flexible to the thought of the 
Great Being, from whose purposes it springs, the 
breath of whose volition it is to us. This pulsation 
of the life of God through his entire creation, by 
which every force rests back instantly on his volition, 
and would vanish, as easily as thought when the 
mind ceases to think, did he but call in again his 
powers, is at once the most adequate and sublime 
conception of the universe, and of its Infinite Source. 
Certainly, the poet, science full in view, can as well 
say to day as in the days that have preceded : 

Some say that in the origin of things, 

When all creation started into birth, 

The infant elements received a law, 

From which they swerved not since. That under force 

Of that controlling ordinance they move, 

And need not his immediate hand, who first 

Prescribed their course, to regulate it now. 

Thus dream they, and contrive to save a God 

Th' encumbrance of his own concerns, and spare 

The great Artificer of all that moves 

The stress of a continual act, the pain 

Of unremitted vigilance and care, 

As too laborious and severe a task. 

So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems, 

To span omnipotence, and measure might, 

That knows no measure, by the scanty rule 

And standard of his own, that is to-day, 

And is not ere to-morrow's sun go down. 

But how should matter occupy a charge, 

Dull as it is, and satisfy a law 

So vast in its demands, unless impelled 



matter; its existence and nature. 129 

To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force, 
And under pressure of some conscious cause ? 
The Lord of all, himself through all diffused, 
Sustains, and is the life of all that lives. 
Nature is but a name for an effect, 
Whose cause is God. He feeds the sacred fire, 
By which the mighty process is maintained ■ 
Who sleeps not, is not weary ; in whose sigh 
Slow circling ages are as transient days ; 
Whose work is without labor ; whose designs 
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts ; 
And whose beneficence no change exhausts. 



LECTURE VI. 

CONSCIOUSNESS, THE FIELD OF MENTAL FACTS. 

Having traced in outline the department of physi- 
cal inquiry — that is, the general ideas under which 
the mind traverses it, we turn to the correlative and 
independent branch of investigation, and the notions 
which control it, to wit : mental phenomena — con- 
sciousness, right, liberty. There are two preliminary 
inquiries concerning this field : Where is it located 
— where are its facts to be sought ? and, What is 
the authority or validity of these facts — their test of 
certainty ? Till comparatively recently there has been 
but one answer to the first question. No one thought 
of looking elsewhere for the facts of mind than to 
the mind itself, than to consciousness. Several causes 
have concurred to give inquiry, in later years, in large 
part, a new direction. The dogma found entrance in 
metaphysics themselves, that the senses furnish the 
entire, original material of thought, and thus the 
weight and importance of outside influences were 
greatly enhanced. The general success of physical 
inquiries, and the striking discoveries in anatomy and 
physiology, greatly aided this tendency ; till now there 
are many and able thinkers who would give a very 
different answer to the above inquiry ; who would 
turn the attention, some to the brain and nervous 
system — some to these, and the physical organization 
generally ; some to the cranium — the outside look of 



CONSCIOUSNESS, THE FIELD OF MENTAL FACTS. I3I 

the head and face ; some to the historical development 
of animal life, and, as included therein, the intellec- 
tual life of the world. This inclination to remove at- 
tention from the phenomena of mind as previously 
understood, and direct it to what had been either 
overlooked altogether, or regarded as a very second- 
ary adjunct, is what may be called, in a general 
way, the materialistic tendency. We would not wish 
to use, or to seem to use, the words, materialism and 
materialistic, as blind, cant phraseology of reprobation 
and reproach. Indeed, they are applicable to the 
philosophical products of many of the most able 
minds of the day, and range with greater or less fit- 
ness, through various and diverse classes of thinkers, 
who have little in common, either in method or men- 
tal power. From Mill on the one extreme, to Mauds- 
ley on the other, we speak of the drift of the included 
philosophy as being that of materialism ; though the 
movement is hardly discernible at one point, and very 
decisive at another. Every stream has its centre 
where the waters glide rapidly to their destination. 
When Mill, whose philosophy makes no provision 
even for the valid being of matter, and whose inquir- 
ies are carried on almost exclusively within the rec- 
ognized field of philosophy under its common and 
familiar methods, is spoken of as a materialist, it is 
because of the under flow of his belief, drawing those 
who feel it, and who have less power than himself to 
resist it, at once into the vortex of material forces. 
The cardinal step is taken by him, that step in phil- 
osophy which leaves the mind, bereft of primitive 
data of thought, to suffer the activities of matter, and 



132 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

receive its shape from them. Sensations, percep- 
tions, are thus the seats of efficiency, and forestall 
every intellectual product. This — though it tends to 
it — is indeed a very different attitude from that of 
Maudsley, who seems to diffuse the mind evenly 
through the body, to identify the action of the two, 
and to be as guiltless of philosophy proper as it is 
possible that any one should be. Indeed, his intelli- 
gence and ability are a great surprise to us, achieved 
under such conditions. 

Materialism, with a oneness of tendency, but with 
this great range and incongruity of results, shows its 
character, especially in its declared forms, by the 
answer it gives to this inquiry after the field of phil- 
osophy. More frequently it totally misses it, and 
always gives foremost position to much that is second- 
ary. Let us not fail to say, however, that material- 
ism, amid all the intellectual and moral mischief it is 
sure to work, has brought compensation in the second- 
ary investigations it has carried on, and in the light 
that these have sometimes cast on the chief points 
of discussion. Thus, a right apprehension of voli- 
tion, of the relation of voluntary and involuntary acts, 
and of the nature of the acquisition of skill by prac- 
tice, are greatly aided by a study of the nervous and 
muscular systems. In our response to the first ques- 
tion, we adhere to the general conviction of philoso- 
phy,, before it suffered the passing bias of the pres- 
ent, intense form of physical pursuits, and say, that 
consciousness is the exclusive field of the facts of 
mental science. We may, however, often be assisted, 
both in our knowledge of these, and in our interpre- 



CONSCIOUSNESS, THE FIELD OF MENTAL FACTS. 1 33 

tation of them, by a study of the things directly as- 
sociated with them ; as history, laying open the 
human soul in the activities of daily life ; as language, 
accurately and exhaustively distinguishing and desig- 
nating its states and acts ; as physiology, exposing 
the mechanism through which, and restricted by 
which, it reaches the physical world ; as animal life, 
which also includes a portion of our powers, and ad- 
umbrates those which are higher than its own. This 
primary and inapproachable nature of the facts of 
consciousness, needs to be distinctly seen and ac- 
cepted. Only thus can we inititate successfully and 
safely that independent movement of which true phil- 
osophy is the offspring. In the first place, we affirm, 
that no physical fact, whatever its intellectual bear- 
ings, can be understood in them without an explana- 
tion, an illumination derived from consciousness itself. 
The real key of the connection, forever and exclu- 
sively, comes therefrom. The physicist who is un- 
dertaking to account for a mental fact on a physical 
basis, and to identify the two states, never found the 
mental in the physical phenomena, but stole the first 
from consciousness, and then came and carefully 
covered it up with the second. The physical in- 
quirer, with his group of admirers, is like one who 
is to show his skill in putting together a complex 
machine. He has a key whose possession he is un- . 
willing to acknowledge, but which he is compelled to 
consult from time to time. This he accomplishes in 
so furtive a way as not to mar his visible success, 
though his independent skill is an entire delusion. 
Thus Maudsley, when he identifies association with 



134 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

the successive assimilations of like material by the 
nerve-cells, takes a knowledge of this fact of associa- 
tion out of consciousness, and in a fanciful way fastens 
it upon another fact, obtained from a very different 
source, between which and it, he imagines there is a 
resemblance. Had he been shut out of conscious- - 
ness, that is, from consulting consciousness in the 
ordinary routine of the metaphysical method ; if he 
could not have glanced at the key in the crown of his 
hat, he would not have been able so neatly to unite 
these two facts. Cells and the secretions of cells, 
might be looked at a long while, and very intently, 
before there would be seen in them, as physical facts, 
the fact of association. With another glance at the 
conveniently located hat, he begins to talk of " ide- 
ational" cells ; that is, cells whose secretions or 
changes are ideas. Whence come these ideas ? Evi- 
dently, they are a second escape from the mind itself, 
occasioned by a furtive opening of the door of con- 
sciousness. An equally absurd and deceptive work 
does the phrenologist do in labeling the projections 
of the head, as if he read language, benevolence, ideal- 
ity on them from the outside, and not from the inside ; 
as if he got his theories by neglecting consciousness, 
and looking at craniums. The follies and errors of 
them he, doubtless, does thus obtain, but the founda- 
tions of them, not at all. We must know what the 
powers of the mind are, before we can enter on an 
intelligible discussion of their location. We cannot 
locate powers we have not got, nor those whose ex- 
istence we have not recognized. The absurd divis- 
ions of the phrenologists — as benevolence, combative- 



CONSCIOUSNESS, THE FIELD OF MENTAL FACTS. I 35 

ness, philoprogenitiveness arise from the haste with 
which this first work has been done, from the unan- 
alyzed and mixed way in which they have accepted 
the phenomena of consciousness. Their method has 
been much as if one should take a dozen murder- 
ers, search their heads for a projection, and label it, 
in happy assurance, the power of homicide, to be 
complemented later by the power of infanticide, the 
power of suicide, the power of regicide. Combative- 
ness is the fruit of a variety of causes and tempera- 
ments, as is murder of a variety of motives and 
passions. What these first elements of action are, 
must be known, before we can assign them a position. 
If we are to give every unanalyzed state or condition 
of the mind a locality, we must either overlook many, 
or soon find ourselves at fault for new spaces where- 
on to map down our growing powers. If the love 
of children is one faculty, the love of parents, or 
old people, should be a second ; of one's wife, a 
third ; of a friend, a fourth, and so on, through horse 
and dog and gun, till we have reached the mar- 
gin of our regards. We might much more hope- 
fully study the saintly devices of a cathedral win- 
dow from the outside, than search the human soul 
by means of any dim shadow it may cast of its 
spiritual substance on the external world. Nay, the 
thing is absolutely impossible, unless we bring to our 
labor some quick, furtive glances upon the surface 
play of our own minds. We cannot even call mur- 
der, murder, unless we believe in the malice of the 
agent, and it is a foolishly difficult and hopeless un- 
dertaking to locate our powers, unless we bring to it, 



I36 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

as its first condition, a complete and systematic 
survey of those powers whose external signs and 
forms of existence we are to trace. If, then, all 
knowledge of the mind by external, physical facts is 
conditioned on a previous knowledge of internal states 
or acts, and if all thorough knowledge, so aided in its 
acquisition, implies a complete, previous analysis of 
our faculties, then it is evident, that the field of phil- 
osophy is consciousness, and that all other inquiries 
are secondary ; that this, at least, is the source, the 
centre, and origin of the facts under discussion. 

A second consideration, showing consciousness to 
be the field, in a very important sense, the exclusive 
field of mental science, is the absolute separation of 
its phenomena from all others. They do not, as in 
the natural sciences, shade off, by insensible degrees, 
into those of kindred departments, but are cut short 
with an astonishingly abrupt and decided stroke, by 
a clean and impassible boundary. No acts can be 
more distinct, can be as distinct, as an act, or state 
of mind, and a physical act or state : for instance, the 
movement of one's hand and the feeling which gives 
rise to it. There is no ground of likeness or unlike- 
ness between them whatsoever. They are simply, 
totally diverse, parted by the entire diameter of being. 
It would be a hopeless task to explain the sensation 
from the motion, or to understand the motion through 
the sensation simply. No points of observation, 
therefore, are more perfectly distinct, than that from 
which we overlook, through the senses, the external 
world, and that from which we command the facts, 
the states of mind. To withdraw into consciousness, 



CONSCIOUSNESS, THE FIELD OF MENTAL FACTS. 1 37 

to let drop the curtains of the mind about us, puts us 
in a most peculiar and private attitude ; and we often 
instinctively close the eyes as marking our seclusion 
and retreat from all sensible things. So absolutely 
sacred are these penetralia of the mind, that every 
man, of necessity, is his own high-priest, and enters 
there alone for its ordinary and sacred duties alike. 
The materialist who identifies any physical state or 
action whatsoever with any spiritual state or action 
whatsoever — the one explained to the senses, the 
other found in consciousness — confounds things be- 
tween which he can show no agreement whatsoever ; 
and to a knowledge of both of which, he cannot pos- 
sibly arrive by the same form of inquiry. No iden- 
tification, therefore, can be more ungrounded than 
this identification ; no confusion more complete than 
this confusion. There would seem to be, according 
to such a view, no inherent impossibility of a man's 
seeing his own thinking, and making an act of mind, 
exist in the mind itself, whose it is in a double form. 
If the brain were laid open, and its states made visi- 
ble, these might be returned by reflection into the 
eye of the still living agent, and he might enjoy the 
satisfaction, at least for a brief interval, of catching 
his own soul at work. So absurd is the conclusion 
which attaches to the idea, that the physicist at all 
penetrates the mind by a scrutiny of the cerebrum, 
cerebellum, and spinal cord. Let him be assured, 
that even if it were true that a nervous state is iden- 
tical with an idea, such a state could not be known 
or seen as an idea from without. The transparency 
must be interpreted, looking towards the light. This 



I38 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

is the soul's attitude, in catching thoughts and feel- 
ings, as thoughts and feelings. An inequality of 
thickness may, in translucent material, occasion, 
when held to the sun, a beautiful image, but allowed 
to drop into the shadow, and regarded only as an 
opaque, uneven surface, it loses, at once, its signifi- 
cance. Believe what you will about the brain, you 
must go in and look out through it, if you wish to 
see " those nimble fiery, and delectable shapes " with 
which the mind amuses and engages itself. You may 
study a telescope, by taking apart its lenses, and 
inquiring into their focal distances, but if you wish to 
study astronomy, put them together again in the best 
possible order, and look through them at the heavens. 
If you wish to study the brain, cut away at your sub- 
ject ; if you wish to study the mind, catch the images 
of that spiritual light which filters through your own 
living brain into the quiet seats of consciousness. 

In two marked ways has this separation and se- 
clusion of mental phenomena been broken in upon. 
LeWes, in his Physiology of Common Life, under- 
takes to establish the assertion, that all action in the 
human body that is connected with gray, nervous 
centres, whether of the spinal column, or nether or 
upper brain, enters consciousness, is known in con- 
sciousness. Thus the motion of the heart, the lungs, 
and the digestive channel, would all be facts of con- 
sciousness. With such boldness, does this physicist 
confront consciousness, and tell it what is in it, as if 
the very fact of being in consciousness were not the 
fact of being known to be in consciousness ; and as if 
a thing could be in consciousness which is not there 



CONSCIOUSNESS, THE FIELD OF MENTAL FACTS. 1 39 

to the apprehension of the party under consideration. 
Like some over-eager tradesman who tells his cus- 
tomer what he wants, Lewes takes the mind under 
his tutelage, and indicates to it what it is expected 
to report, and intimates, that if it fails to fill the 
schedule, it will only reflect discredit on its own 
veracity. Surely, here is a chance for any theory 
whatsoever in philosophy, if we can infer facts into 
consciousness, of which consciousness itself knows 
nothing. An opponent's ledger will, doubtless, report 
what we wish it to report, if we are left to make the 
entries. The grounds on which this strange asser- 
tion is made and protractedly enforced, are chiefly 
a-priori. Likeness of structure, it is affirmed, implies 
likeness of office. Gray, nervous centres are like in 
structure, hence all, or no part, of that which enters 
them, which affects them, should appear in conscious- 
ness. I never read a physicist that had any disrelish 
for a-priori arguments except when employed by met- 
aphysicians : then, they are thought to be peculiarly 
treacherous and dangerous. It may be possible that 
like structure in unlike relations may be attended 
with a modification of offices ; and that different por- 
tions, therefore, of the gray ganglia may render dif- 
ferent services to the vital and the spiritual forces 
concerned. The argument of Lewes proceeds on 
the purely physical basis, that like nervous currents, 
or influences, terminating in nervous seats, struc- 
turally alike, must produce like results, and when 
consciousness steps in to arrest this reasoning, he 
composedly gives it the lie. This view might be 
just were we dealing with simple, physical forces ; 



140 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

but the way in which the vital and intellectual ele- 
ments respectively touch these, and are touched by 
them, is not so to be treated. It would be very diffi- 
cult, we apprehend, to distinguish between sound 
and sight, by a difference in the very structure of the 
nerves employed. Variety of relation, as well as 
variety of structure, may give variety of office. 

But the effort to break down the testimony of con- 
sciousness at this point, is not of more grave import 
than a like effort, generally made by entirely other par- 
ties, less aware of the results of their action, to intro- 
duce facts into mental science, which have not the tes- 
timony of consciousness. Hamilton, in harmony with 
many other metaphysicians, is full of what he terms 
subconscious phenomena. Professor Porter, in his 
recent book, speaks of " unconscious acts of the soul," 
in the most assured way, and seems to regard them as 
especially present in our earlier and more instinctive 
activities. Indeed, this scaffolding of latent states 
and subconscious acts has been so generally built 
up about all mental structures, that most accept them 
as a matter of course, and scarcely stop to challenge 
the occasion or the proof of the most obtrusive of 
them. This we now do, from beginning to end, and 
are not prepared to accept any phenomena as men- 
tal which are not witnessed to the mind in con- 
sciousness. We are to remember that intellectual 
facts are closely associated with physical and vital 
ones, and are, therefore, easily to be confounded with 
them. We believe the exact line between the two, 
to be found here : that those, all of those, and only 
those which appear in consciousness, are mental ; 



CONSCIOUSNESS, THE FIELD OF MENTAL FACTS. I4I 

and, that all others, if they are phenomena at all, are 
so in space, and are possessed, therefore, of a physical 
character. In this belief of subconscious mental 
states, we find proof of two things : of the ease with 
which pure assumptions for a long time find place 
unquestioned in science and philosophy ; and of the 
certainty with which physical imagery creeps into 
spiritual facts. Matter undergoes both obvious and 
recondite changes ; the former often follow, as effects, 
the latter. Thus the mind is conceived as possessed 
of some sort of substantial being, wherein concealed 
phenomena can occur, strongly influencing those 
which come to light in consciousness. 

Now, the simplest, possible statement of facts, 
with the fewest assumed causes, is the most philo- 
sophical. This, we believe to be, that all phenomena 
— mark the word, phenomena — of mind are in con- 
sciousness ; that any other phenomena of mind would, 
from the very nature of the case, be unknowable, un- 
determinable, and, therefore, not to be believed in, 
except on the best of proof; and, that if they were 
actually shown to exist as phenomena anywhere, it 
must be in space, and thus they would sink to phys- 
ical facts. Physical facts — facts in space, mental 
facts — facts in consciousness, are all the facts of 
which we have any direct knowledge, and we excuse 
ourselves from believing in any other, till the proof 
is forthcoming and unmistakable. This, we think it 
very far from being. As we have examined it else- 
where, we shall not enter on the refutation. The 
burden of proof lies with those who affirm such phe- 
nomena : it is for them to establish them by the most 



142 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

undeniable arguments, since the very existence of so 
many phenomena in an unlocated, unapproachable, 
inconceivable region, — mark again the word, phenom- 
ena, things, that do in some way, or somewhere 
transpire — is a most weighty presumption against 
them. All is simplicity, verified, verifiable facts, if 
we believe in physical facts, and mental facts, each in 
their own field, and knock away all supposititious 
facts, transpiring on some midway ground. We in- 
sist on this, as a first and essential step, in making 
our defence against materialism. Plant the physicist 
on the farther physical side of the gulf; maintain 
ourselves on the nearer, spiritual shore ; strike off 
those mongrel notions and conceptions by which he 
would link the two, those bridges of the imagination 
which have enough lightness in them to lie in the 
air, and enough matter in them to give footing to a 
harpy throng from below — consign these to the limbo 
of dreams in which they belong, and our position is 
unassailable, unapproachable. In affirming that the 
mind has its complete, phenomenal existence in con- 
sciousness, we do not lose sight of, or deny the ulti- 
mate fact of the growth of mind, an increase in power. 
We only say, that this is not to be imaged under a 
material form, as a material change in the mind itself. 
This growth appears, phenomenally, in the states of 
consciousness, consequent upon it ; unphenomenally, 
it is as inapproachable as the nature of the mind it- 
self. 

Having shown these two things : first, that no out- 
side physical fact can be understood in its philosoph- 
ical bearings, except by means of a previous knowl- 



CONSCIOUSNESS, THE FIELD OF MENTAL FACTS. 1 43 

edge of a correlative, inside, mental fact ; and second, 
that the two facts and classes of facts are perfectly 
distinct from each other ; we are ready to give the 
deep grounds and reasons of this in the mind itself. 
Our regulative ideas mark out the lines of thought ; 
the chief impassable boundary between things. These 
conceptions are as incommunicable, in reference to 
the points at which they apply, as are the several 
senses in regard to the peculiar impressions they 
make. The beauty of a landscape and the delight 
of music, the perfume of a rose and the flavor of a 
pear, have nothing in common. They are as distinct 
as things can be, entering the mind by diverse ave- 
nues, and reported under different types of sensibility. 
Thus the notion of time, and that of space have no 
real resemblance to each other. There is nothing in 
the one which is in the other, and though they apply 
to the same things, they pertain to them in entirely 
distinct relations. They still remain, like the blush 
on the cheek of a peach and the flavor of its dis- 
solving pulp, adhering in one thing, indeed, yet alien 
in the conditions of knowledge. Consciousness is 
such a regulative idea, one that sets apart to a pecu- 
liar mode of being an entire class of facts ; moreover, 
facts that nowhere overlap those that transpire in 
space. The two together cover all phenomena, and 
under this first central division, events fall to the 
right and to the left, as those of matter and those of 
mind, with an unmistakable and unchangeable boun- 
dary between them . 

Looking at the incommunicable nature of conscious- 
ness and space, we should have no suggestion even of 



144 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

the way in which these two phenomenal worlds touch 
each other. There is, however, a third idea, which in 
one and the same application covers them both. It 
is that of time. A series of thoughts synchronize with 
a series of physical transactions ; and the inner expe- 
rience runs on pari passu with the outer. We see 
thus how Leibnitz was led to look on the two worlds 
as independent, parallel lines, whose coincidences are 
secured by a " pre-established harmony." Thus two 
clocks, each wound up by itself, travel with exact cor- 
respondence through the hours and minutes of the 
day. It is our notion of causation which prevents our 
accepting this independent parallelism of the spiritual 
and physical worlds, and to believe in a perpetual, 
though unexplained, reaction between them, of which 
the body is the inscrutable instrument, as the sunken 
cable is the unsearchable tie of remote continents. 
The assertions, then, that no physical fact can put us 
in connection with a mental fact, save through a pre- 
vious knowledge of this fact, as no word can give us 
an idea, till we have attached the idea to it ; and that 
the two facts remain perfectly and forever separable, 
are explained and enforced in this further assertion, 
that consciousness is to space a contrasted, regula- 
tive idea, dividing the facts of the world with it, and 
setting them apart in a most radical, inerasable dis- 
tinction of nature. 

We need further to explain and enforce this asser- 
tion, that consciousness is a regulative idea. What, 
then, is a primitive notion, a regulative idea ? One 
that gives some inseparable form, or mode of exist- 
ence, yet cannot be found by the senses in the ob- 



CONSCIOUSNESS, THE FIELD OF MENTAL FACTS. I4.5 

jects to which it pertains. Thus time is not seen, 
felt, or heard by us, is no property of the distinct 
events that transpire in it, yet is ready in the mind 
as the condition of understanding every transaction. 
So, space is the regulative idea to the facts which it 
explains ; is so in each of them, so permeative of their' 
very being, that it assumes a variety of most intimate 
relations to them as we contemplate it. Space seems 
an antecedent condition to matter, that in which the 
physical object is found, a very mode of existence to 
matter, since the extended body grasps it in its own 
extension. Yet, after all, none of these primitive 
conceptions are given with the very getting in the 
senses of the objects to which they belong. Space 
is no more seen than tasted, felt than smelt. Color 
is beheld, but the actual extension of that color we 
saw was arrived at indirectly. Now, to these charac- 
teristics of a regulative idea, consciousness responds. 
First, it is not a part of the phenomena to which it 
belongs, as the hardness of iron is a portion of its 
qualities. Some have striven so to regard it, and, 
like Prof. Porter, have spoken of it as an act of mind ; 
that is, itself a phenomenon, among mental phenom- 
ena. This opinion is obviously untenable. There 
can be no act of knowledge, which is not a conscious 
act of knowledge. For a knowing that is not know- 
ing, would be an odd knowing indeed. But if an act 
of knowledge is made up of two acts, the first of 
knowing proper, and the second of consciousness 
proper, this first act of knowing comes to nothing, 
since we know without being conscious of it, that is, 
we do not know. If, then, we allow consciousness to 
7 



I46 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

come in as an act, it steals away the whole marrow 
and pith of every other act, and, to be conscious that 
we know, is to know ; to be conscious that we feel, 
is to feel ; to be conscious that we will, is to will. 
Hence, some, like Hamilton, have seemed to shift on 
to this ground, and to say that consciousness is the 
inclusive, generic act, of which each individual act of 
knowledge is an example. But this position is no 
more tenable, since the genus is no other than the 
collective species ; and if each specific act of know- 
ing, and equally of feeling and volition, is one of con- 
sciousness, the distinction between them disappears, 
and all mental activities are resolved into a single ac- 
tivity called consciousness. We saw that if conscious- 
ness does any of the knowing, it does the whole ; 
thus also, if it does any of the feeling it does the 
whole, since every part is equally pervaded with it, 
and thus thought, feeling and volition in their differ- 
ences are lost, swallowed up in this very centre and 
substratum of their being. On the other hand, re- 
gard an act of knowing as simple and complete in 
itself; one of feeling, or one of volition as equally so ; 
and that their common condition or characteristic is 
consciousness, and all is clear, consistent. Now, 
however, consciousness has become a condition, a 
mode of being, something inseparable from mental 
acts, that by which and through which we understand 
them, that which determines them to be what they 
are, and this is to be a regulative idea. All perplex- 
ity, therefore, met with, in making consciousness any 
distinct portion of mental phenomena, in regarding 
that as phenomenal which accompanies every phe- 



CONSCIOUSNESS, THE FIELD OF MENTAL FACTS. 1 4/ 

nomenon, goes to show that the true key of the solu- 
tion is to be found in the antecedent and necessary 
relation of the mind to its own states and activities, 
by which they are known to it, in and by the fact of 
being its activities. A state of knowing, or of feel- 
ing, includes, as its condition or complement, this 
notion of consciousness, thus revealing it as the regu- 
lative idea of the department. The above discussion 
may seem to you remote and abstruse, but it is of 
the last degree of importance. If its conclusions are 
correct, not only are all present identifications of 
mental and physical phenomena shown to be false, 
the very effort to make them is disclosed as intrinsi- 
cally absurd, as much so as to resolve colors into 
odors.^<_ 

We have now answered the question, Where are 
the facts of philosophy to be found ? and come to our 
second inquiry, What is the test of their validity ? 
What is sufficient proof of the existence of a faculty, 
and, therefore, of the correctness, the certainty of the 
things reported by it ? Before, we had to deal chiefly 
with materialists as adversaries, now we have to deal 
with idealists as well. The idealist magnifies mind ; 
indeed, he makes it the whole circle of being. Yet, 
he nevertheless assigns an illusory and deceptive 
character to some of its conclusions, a portion of its 
powers, to wit : those by which it reaches or fancies 
it reaches the exterior world. He overlooks, in its 
sufficient, solid character, all that reasoning from 
causation by which we have shown the existence and 
nature of matter to be established. With these start- 
ling inconsistencies, idealism may be a very brilliant, 



I48 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

logical, consistent system, tracing with astonishing 
subtlety the interdependence of thought, the inherent 
laws of its connections. The idealist uses the facts 
of the mind, much as the naturalist might use the 
images cast, in a darkened room, on the screen of a 
solar microscope. Let all the minute life of the outer 
world find its way to the focus of the instrument, and 
thus to the screen, and he is prepared to point out 
resemblances, establish classes, and develop the crea- 
tive plan, and this without any reference to the real, 
out-door world. To the instrument of the idealist, our 
wonderfully organized bodies, every fact does come, 
and is cast upon the inner canvas as thoughts, sensa- 
tions, emotions, volitions. On these, the philosopher 
does work with marvellous manipulations, evolving 
one from another, till the lofty universe of thought is 
piled up in proud, airy fashion, transparent and crys- 
talline to the eye of the intellect in all directions. 

We may be delighted with these products of spec- 
ulation, but when we wish, in a modest, reliable way, 
to know, as against idealist or materialist, what is, 
we come back to this inquiry, What are our faculties, 
what their proof ? Spencer starts his Psychology 
with this discussion in another form, and with his 
usual power and perspicuity, reaches some conclu- 
sions valuable for us. He says, " The existence of 
beliefs is the fundamental fact, and those beliefs, 
which invariably exist, are those which, both ration- 
ally and of necessity, we must adopt. Its invariable 
existence is the ultimate authority for any belief." I 
am glad to avail myself of this statement — the gist 
of a careful discussion, though the use to be m 



CONSCIOUSNESS, THE FIELD OF MENTAL FACTS. I49 

of it is very different from that for which Spencer 
was preparing it. There is no sword that does quite 
as agreeable a service as one captured from an en- 
emy. The mind can, evidently, do no otherwise, and 
do no better, than to accept those conclusions, those 
sensations, those beliefs, which return perpetually 
upon it. Spencer may look upon this as an ultimate 
fact. We assign, as its ground and reason, that a 
persistent repetition of impressions indicates a power 
whose normal product they are, and whose asser- 
tions are to be accepted. The proof in the human 
constitution of a given power to do, is the doing of 
the action ; of a power to know, is the actual pres- 
ence in the mind of the specified knowledge. To 
this, there is only one limitation, that the action of 
the mind is general and uniform. Certain hallucina- 
tions may occupy fixedly one mind, or may be present 
with us for a limited period. These, though neces- 
sarily carrying to the patient a firm conviction of 
their truth, though filling his whole horizon with the 
absurd, the fantastic, or the terrible, are, to the con- 
sistent whole of human experience, trivial exceptions, 
a breaking in at a single point of foreign, abnormal, 
unexplained forces. We believe that we see, simply 
because we see, see constantly, see consistently, on 
each new occasion the same things. These uniform, 
well-ordered results, pertaining to ourselves and to all 
about us, are undeniable proof to us, of the existence 
and validity of the sense of sight ; whose data are to 
be accepted on the simple testimony of the eye. 
Thus is it with our judgments, our reasonings. We 
confirm them by simple repetition, by assuring our- 



150 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

selves that they are the normal, corrected products 
of the mind. Though the grounds of opinion are so 
various, that there is no general agreement among 
men as to many of their conclusions, yet we rarely 
lose faith in our own carefully-formed judgments, and 
if we do, do it with great loss and detriment to our-i 
selves. The same principle evidently must cover the 
mind's entire action. If the ascription of a cause to 
every effect is as general among men as the sense 
of touch, then it has, as a power of mind, exactly the 
same authority. All the agreement and universality 
that we require is, that fitting conditions shall be 
attended with certain, uniform results ; that when 
men's eyes are' open in the light, they shall see ; that 
when a complete, geometric proof is understood by 
one, he shall not fail to accept its conclusions ; that 
when events are transpiring before any parties, they 
shall explain their sequence by the notion of time. 
When careful analysis has yielded all the uniformi- 
ties of action, all the distinct grounds of convic- 
tion in our intellectual constitution, there is therein 
disclosed the number of our faculties ; each of which, 
in its normal state, has equal authority with every 
other, and exclusive authority in its own field. That 
one finds less frequent application than another, that 
we see oftener than we taste, or taste oftener than we 
turn to Euclid, is immaterial, provided that the uni- 
formities are firm and established under given condi-4 
tions. Probably, there are no more discrepancies in 
the action of any faculty, than in that of judgment — 
so great is the variety of circumstances in which it is 
brought into play — yet judgment holds undisputed 



CONSCIOUSNESS, THE FIELD OF MENTAL FACTS. 151 

authority with us. That the mind cannot rationally 
resist its own uniformities is most plain. If its action 
is to be trusted at all, evidently, that portion of it is 
to be believed which is most consistent and stable. 
Its desultory and distrustful action, intrinsically weak, 
cannot withstand its habitual and confirmed action, 
constitutionally strong. If our convictions were the 
mere result of habit, these ordinary ones must be 
good as against those extraordinary ones. In fact, 
under the one set of conclusions, lies our entire faith 
in ourselves, in the soundness of our powers ; and 
under the other, those fitful impulses of fear, of dis- 
trust, which are, to our familiar thoughts, much what 
a transient shock of an earthquake is to the abiding 
phenomena of land and water. Rationally, a distrust 
of faculties, established by these uniformities, finds 
no basis ; as the action of mind by which we are led 
to doubt all or any one of our powers can claim no 
firmer ground than that disputed by it ; nay, must, 
in its rare occurrence and partial prevalence, rest on 
ground every way weaker. The faculties are all 
peers ; they all have the same chart of nobility, and 
for one to invalidate the claim of another, is to cast 
down its own claim. 

Such is the human mind, ultimate to itself, through 
all its faculties ; aiding, indeed, one power by another ; 
shifting the conditions under which a power acts ; 
holding faith for awhile in abeyance, but finally stand- 
ing within itself, resting back on its own resolved 
and well-ordered action as the only rock of belief, the 
only foothold of knowledge. Even when we attach 
ourselves weakly to another, we must decide who 



152 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

that other shall be, and repose faith in those same 
faculties in him, which we have discarded in our- 
selves. So firm and necessary is this poise of the 
mind on its own pivot, that the unfortunate maniac 
is bound fast by his conceptions, and is far less 
frantic than would be one, who should cut wholly 
loose from these conceptions. Vigor and health of 
mind always show themselves in a wholesome con- 
fidence in one's faculties ; while distrust and fear in 
thought, are among the first signals of weakness and 
overthrow. Like genuine kings, we rule the world 
from within : masters of thought, we rule it, by a 
central faith in our own faculties, in overpowering con- 
victions that go forth from us like a flood, expending 
that momentum which they gathered from the soul 
itself in their very conception, on every external ob- 
stacle, till they have swallowed it up. The mind, 
then, looks to itself, for the facts of philosophy ; 
looks to itself for its belief in those facts ; knows its 
own powers so as to trust them, be satisfied with 
them, to prefer them to all other powers. It finds 
itself complete, because it is complete within the 
circle of its own being ; able to believe, because it 
waits only on the signature of its own faculties, and 
not on the testimony of another ; novel, unsearchable, 
and powerful, because the laws of its activity spring 
from itself, because it is sufficient unto itself. 



LECTURE VII. 

RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 

We have spoken of the two fields of phenomena ; 
the one in space, whose objects come under the idea 
of resemblance, and the law of whose events is that 
of cause and effect ; the other in consciousness. It 
is now our purpose to inquire into the law, the pecu- 
liar connections of these mental states and acts, whose 
location we have sought for and found. It does not 
present itself, as in the case of causation, under a 
simple form — one movement of force threading to- 
gether all facts — but under a double, or even more 
complex, aspect. The mind forecasts lines of effort, 
laws of action, and then, from the resources of its own 
liberty, chooses between them. The primary law of 
rational life is, on the perceptive side, that of right ; 
and the primary principle, on the side of power, by 
which our faculties play into and under this law, is 
that of liberty. Neither has significance without the 
other. Liberty is nothing, if it finds no occasion of 
choice between evil and good. A law of obligation 
is absurd, monstrous, without the liberty which ren- 
ders obedience possible. 

We devote the present lecture to right, the per- 
ceptive half of the complex law. This is a dusty, 
well-travelled field, with many by-ways. It will 
neither be pleasant nor profitable to wander through 
them all : and the indispensable condition of success 



154 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

with us will be to rise to a point, at which a clear, 
rapid, bird's-eye view can be taken of the entire 
ground. The facts which seek explanation are very 
patent, very undeniable, and though occasionally per- 
verted in the statement, are, for the most part, well 
agreed upon. One cannot enter civilized society 
without at once observing, that men are momentar- 
ily, in many forms, instituting, conceding and repel- 
ling claims on each other ; claims which repose on 
what they call moral grounds, or grounds of right. 
The family, the school, the community, the state, 
and states as between themselves, are organized by 
means of them ; and we have, in each of these rela- 
tions, those who do right, and those who do wrong ; 
those to be praised, and those to be censured ; things 
to be claimed, and things to be refused ; parties to 
be punished, and parties to be rewarded. No man 
is ever so vile, but that he will complain of personal 
wrong in another, nor so blind that he cannot see 
sin that militates against himself. No excuses are 
so perverse as not to take for granted a right some- 
where ; or so careless as not to strive, in part at least/ 
to attach themselves to it. Now this virtue, whose 
virtue every man concedes, in whose presence every 
man is abashed, or if he breaks out into scorn, by the 
intensity of his passion, betrays the greatness of the 
power he casts off ; this virtue that walks everywhere 
with authority among men, that gathers to itself hate 
and love, like a Christ ; this invisible spirit that springs 
from the depths of the human soul, to vex and rule 
society, and toss it, like a pervasive tide, on its angry 
and its peaceful waves, demands of philosophy its 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 1 55 

occasion and ground. The facts are so palpable, 
that no thoughtful mind can escape their perplexity, 
and must perforce cast about for a reason. 

The central fact in our moral nature, using current 
language, is the perception of right. This notion 
has a double bearing, an emotional and an intellect- 
ual side. The two are inseparable ; we perceive and 
we feel at the same instant, the perception being the 
ground and occasion of the feeling. The feeling is 
one of obligation ; the perception is of that quality 
of action which we term its moral quality. The two 
together, the intuition and the emotion, constitute 
our notion of right. The indissoluble nature of the 
two is important in this discussion, since an effort 
has been made to part them. Obligation has been 
spoken of as ultimate, while right has been derived 
from the ends pursued. They both must share the 
same fortune. Our feelings all have some ground or 
occasion, some object, or some consideration that calls 
them forth. They are all ultimate in this sense, that 
they can only be known by being experienced, that 
each furnishes its own peculiar phase of emotion. 
Some of them, however, are called forth directly by 
an object, as pain by the thrust of a sword ; others 
are occasioned indirectly by the intellectual content 
plation of certain things, as anger by an unkind act. 
Every feeling must have its attachment or occasion ; 
and to say that the feeling of obligation is ultimate, 
can mean nothing of moment, unless it is thereby 
asserted, that the perception which calls it forth 
is primary or ultimate. The sense of obligation 
must be a secondary feeling, if it rests on a calcula- 



I56 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

tion of results, since all that can be meant by a pri- 
mary, as opposed to a secondary, feeling is one that 
springs directly from an object ; not indirectly from 
a presentation of the relations of actions. If right is 
a primary perception, and the feeling of obligation 
follows immediately upon it, then obligation is pri- 
mary ; if right is derived and secondary, so also is 
obligation. They are the two sides of the same act, 
lying at once athwart our intellectual and our emo- 
tional natures, striking into them both, like beauty 
and the pleasure of beauty ; like the odor and flavor 
of ripe fruit ; the light and the heat of a sunbeam. 

A sense of obligation not attached to some act, 
some line of conduct, something in that act and line 
of conduct perceived by us to draw it forth, is as un- 
intelligible as would be acidity with no acid, hardness 
with no solid body ; while the quality of action which 
we designate as right, without the feeling of obliga- 
tion, would be emasculate and impotent, as fire with- 
out heat, light without its chemical power. The 
philosopher, therefore, is called upon to account for 
these two, the source of all moral phenomena, and 
that, not separately, but jointly, as one double-headed 
act, or state of mind : an act that pushes forward in 
perception and backward in obligation ; as a trum- 
peter presses on, and sends ringing behind hjm the 
word of command. 

Materialists, physicists, of course reject the primi- 
tive nature of the idea, and in looking about for a 
source from which to derive it, find one, and only one 
open to them — the obvious advantages which belong 
to some lines of action over others. We have various 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 1 57 

appetites, desires, sensibilities. These cannot all be 
gratified by every line of effort. A choice must be 
made between them, and that action becomes best 
which brings the most pleasure and the least suf- 
fering. The task which falls to wisdom is so to plan 
and arrange effort ; so to direct, check and quicken it, 
that it shall secure the highest results in enjoyment ; 
and that line of action which does this is said to be 
right. This is utilitarianism; a derivation of right 
from the notion of pleasure, of good found in the 
best, the most balanced gratification of our sensibili- 
ties. This view is often broadly and skilfully taken, 
and meets exceedingly well a portion of the difficul- 
ties of the problem. It fails, however, partially in 
explaining the perceptive side of the moral act, and 
almost wholly in expounding its emotional side. It 
is not plain why a martyr should, on this view, lay 
down his life for his faith ; since if you overlook the 
moral nature as itself an independent source of pleas- 
ure and pain — as of course you must, if it is only of 
a derived, secondary character — you can give no suf- 
ficient reason for sacrificing all happiness, yea, and 
its very possibility, simply for the sake of happiness. 
Evidently, the pursuit of good must stop somewhere 
short of extinction, and the command even of God 
which should enjoin this, must be immoral ; that is, 
subversive of the law of utility, which is completely 
cut short by death. If another life is to take up the 
train of enjoyments, it must do it on a different prin- 
ciple from this, and not insist, under any circum- 
stances, on the extinction of pleasures in the pursuit 
of them. 



158 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

On the emotional side the failure is more signal. 
Indeed, there has been vacillation and division just 
here among utilitarians as to the best way of ac- 
counting for the feeling of obligation. Some have 
been willing to refer it to the very idea of good, of 
pleasures ; and to say, that these when offered to us, 
call forth this emotion ; while others have insisted 
that society has, by a process of education, imposed 
the feeling upon us ; has attached it as a sanction to 
the things enjoined by it. The first view comes 
squarely in collision with the fact, that we do not 
feel under obligation to pursue pleasure ; indeed, that 
such an obligation would be very superfluous as 
pleasure is in and of itself a very sufficient incentive, 
and more often requires the restraint than the incite- 
ment of our moral nature. If pleasure, good, does 
excite this feeling, it should of course do it most ob- 
viously in its strongest forms, and our own pleasures, 
our immediate pleasures, our appetitive pleasures, as 
opposed to the enjoyments of others, or those more 
remote and intellectual, would at once win the field, 
and that under the lead of conscience. The reverse 
of this is true. /Conscience, with unsheathed sword, 
walks up and down these mutinous lines, where im- 
portunate appetites, and impetuous passions, are 
ready to break rank, overawes them, thrusts them 
back, buffets them flatly, and assents to no intrinsic 
claim they may set up. Evidently, then, it does not 
draw its authority from pleasure, since here is pleas- 
ure, utterly put down by it, and that, too, in those 
who know no other pleasure ; who are not shrewdly 
playing off the present against the future, the worn 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 1 59 

sixpence of to-day against the new-coined shilling of 
to-morrow. A magistrate, elected by the mob, rules 
the mob feebly. A conscience which was but the 
voice of our pleasures, could hold but a light rein 
over them. The stubborn fact is, the good, the pleas- 
urable good, does not enjoin its pursuit upon us. 

Nor does the alternative explanation better prosper. 
The most striking manifestations of our moral nature 
are those which arise in the very face of society, in 
flat contradiction of all it affirms. Of this nature is 
every reform, thrown back for its support on the 
plucky conscience of the individual ; supporting itself 
and forcing support from others, against the solid, 
uniform, persistent opinion of the community. We 
should look for the characteristic features of any 
phenomena, where these appear in their most de- 
clared, not in their weakest, form. The salient facts 
in the moral and religious history of the world, are 
those in which the few have resisted the many, and 
the moral victory has been won against majorities. 

One other explanation, sufficiently answered, has 
been the affirmation, that the sense of obligation is 
ultimate, while the right is derivable from the good. 
The two, as we have shown, are inseparable, and 
share the same fate. Moreover, this view almost 
always tacitly includes in the highest end, the good, 
the moral sensibilities themselves, which it cannot 
consistently do. While we are discussing what is the 
source of our moral nature, and are about to derive 
it from the general, emotional character of our consti- 
tution, we cannot inclose therein those very affections 
which are seeking explanation. If the moral nature 



l6o SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

can be derived from itself, if we have gold out of 
which to make gold, the manufacture will doubtless 
be easy. The question is, can lead, tin, platinum, be 
changed into gold : can appetites, natural sensibilities, 
intellectual pleasures, be transmuted into moral affec- 
tions ? Can good, which is the product of these, be 
made the ground and source of the right ? The 
effort to do this is that of utilitarianism, and it is 
the only plausible, if not the only possible, line of ar- 
gument open to them, who reject the idea of right as 
ultimate. No selfishness is charged on utilitarianism, 
no opposition of happiness to duty, but an effort to 
derive duty from happiness, from pleasure, good, bles- 
sedness — all synonymous in this connection, because 
they, one and all, can only mean the emotional returns 
of native sensibilities other than moral — an effort 
which wholly fails to account for the sense of obliga- 
tion. Philosophers of this school, when asked, Why 
are we bound to do right ; must answer, Because it 
confers good, and, then, commences that hopeless 
evocation of duties out of pleasures, philosophy strug- 
gling in vain to over-rule the self-indulgent and las- 
civious crowd with its own notions of enjoyment ; to 
exorcise a ravenous appetite, an insatiate passion, to 
put down fierce revenge and stubborn will with a 
pleasant song of the relations of pleasures one to 
another ; and the method in which they rank and 
out-rank each other in the etiquette and court of 
philosophy. The command, the strong sword-stroke 
of conscience are all gone, and we sit down to reason 
with the debauchee. We bring before him our moral 
diagram, and strive to convince him that this column, 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE l6l 

in which are his enjoyments, does not foot-up as he 
supposes, and that this other column is greater than 
he imagines. With one dash, he strikes out our 
figures, puts down his own glowing estimates of the 
pleasures of lust, and sneeringly asks us to add again, 
and cast anew our remainders. Utilitarianism would 
do well for a moral man, but for an immoral one, it 
is of no service. Prizes answer with honest citizens ; 
but with a mob, gunpowder is better. Says Martin- 
eau, " To look first to its benefits, and then to its 
sanctity, is to invert the true order of our moral life, 
and set the pyramid of duty upon its point rather 
than its base. ... It is the tendency of our times to 
place as implicit a faith in the omnipotence of self- 
interest in morals, as of steam in the arts ; forgetting 
that between the grossest and the most refined form 
of this principle, there can only be the difference 
between the cannibal and the epicure." 

The opposite view is concisely this : the mind it- 
self, by direct instinctive, intuitive action, furnishes 
for itself a law of life, the right. This quality it sees, 
this obligation it feels, as a final, inexplicable, inesca- 
pable fact in certain lines of conduct, making it the 
last and sufficient reason for all action, that it is right. 
The right, however, is only seen in action possessed 
of certain qualities, and standing in certain relations. 
The action must be one of a free, intelligent being, 
and must have reference to the well-being of all 
parties. Those facts do not constitute the very 
Tightness of the action, but are its grounds, that 
which leads the moral nature to see and affirm this 
quality or relation of it. The act, however much hap- 



l62 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

piness might flow from it, was not obligatory till the 
moral nature pronounced it so ; and this is an addi- 
tional, ultimate fact in our constitution, making us 
moral, responsible beings. A reason can be rendered 
for the right in an action in this sense ; its motives 
and consequences can be given, the qualities which 
led the conscience, the mind in its intuitive, moral 
effort, to make the affirmation : not in this sense, 
that those motives and consequences are the sufficient 
and sole source of the quality, right, that right is but 
another name for them. The nature of this view will 
be further developed in answering objections to it, 
and in stating its bearings. It is evident, at the out- 
set, that it accounts for the union of perception and 
emotion in one indivisible, moral act ; and for the 
riddle and puzzle this act has always been ; the stub- 
born residuum it has always shown under intellectual 
analysis. The necessity of a reference of right — the 
central idea of our moral nature — to a primitive, 
simple act of the mind, is found in the failure of 
every other effort to fully explain it. 

The first objection we shall consider against this 
view of the right as a primary idea, is that so sharply 
urged by Bentham, an Englishman above English- 
men, a race and nationality that have always inclined 
to make public morality a quick distillation, an easy 
extract of public advantage. Bentham fairly scorns 
duty. " A moralist," says he, " gets into an elbow- 
chair, and pours forth pompous dogmatisms about 
duty and duties. Why is he not listened to ? Because 
every man is thinking about interests. It is a part of 
his very nature to think first about interests, and 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 1 63 

with these, the well-judging moralist will find it for 
his interest to begin." His objection to the intuitive 
view of morals is its arbitrary character : that it al- 
lows every dogmatist and self-constituted teacher to 
say this is right, because it is right, and there is no 
appeal. Let us give his language : "He who on 
any other occasion should say, * It is as I say because 
I say it is so/ would not be thought to have said any 
great matter ; but on the question concerning the 
standard of morality, men have written great books, 
wherein from beginning to end, they are employed 
in saying this and nothing else. What these books 
have to depend on for their efficacy, and for their 
being thought to have proved anything, is the stock 
of self-sufficiency in the writer, and of implicit defer- 
ence in the readers ; by the help of a proper dose of 
which, one thing may be made to go down as well as 
another." Whatever may have been the assumption 
of his adversaries, this man also is evidently not suf- 
fering from timidity. But what foundation is there 
for this accusation against intuitive morals, of an ar- 
bitrary, irrational character, urged again in these 
words : " ' You ought, you ought not,' cries the dog- 
matist. 'Why?' retorts the inquirer. 'Why ought 
I ? ' ' Because you ought,' is the not unfrequent 
reply ; on which the Why ? comes back again with 
the added advantage of a victory." 

Doubtless, some presentations of the theory of 
morals are open to this objection ; not, we trust, the 
one now given. The reason why we pronounce an 
act to be right is rendered before the affirmation that 
it is right, is furnished in the motives, relations, con- 



164 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

sequences of the act. These are the grounds and 
basis of the intuition, and if they can be removed or 
modified, then the assertion fails, and our estimate of 
the act changes. If, however, these reasons remain- 
ing the same, we are asked why an action is right, 
we can only respond by re-alleging them ; and if this 
is not thought to close the question, we must answer 
again by saying, Because it is right. That is, taking 
a concrete case, my moral nature affirms kindness to 
a suffering child to be right ; and if you ask me, 
Why ? I can only say, Because it does. There is 
nothing singular or assumptive about this. If I am 
asked why I regard the apple as red, I must needs 
say, My eyes so show it. If you regard it as green, 
very well. I leave you with your affirmation, but 
must needs myself adhere to my own. The intuitive 
view of morals is not dictatorial and arbitrary. First, 
because it gives grounds or reasons for its intuitions ; 
second, because it grants no right in one party to 
overbear the conclusions of another. Utility can do 
no more nor better than this — to give reasons and 
let reasons have their way. 

A second objection following close on the above 
conclusion, is, that there is thus left with men a 
hopeless variety of opinions ; each urging his own 
view as right. Now, we do not believe variety to be 
such a radical evil as some think it, nor, that if it 
* is, that it can in any way be escaped. The intuitive 
system does all that can be done. It shows the 
grounds of the variety of moral judgments that now 
exist, and gives the methods in which alone any real 
unity can be secured. The right is affirmed, by the 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. l6$ 

moral nature, of actions as having certain bearings 
on human good, as productive of certain results. As, 
therefore, the consequences, immediate and remote, 
of an action, present themselves very differently to 
us, there is necessarily a want of agreement in our 
estimate of its moral character. We might as well 
complain of sight for not, in every position, revealing 
the same colors in a changeable silk, or a changeable 
leaf, as of our moral sense, for not disclosing acts, 
subject to the most shifting of all lights, in the same 
precise character. The possibility of increasing unity 
is found in a faithful effort to exhaust at least the 
leading features of conduct ; to view it from all sides, 
and to discover its full bearings. 

An allied difficulty, that moral precepts, as dog- 
matic and dictatorial, suffer no growth, finds full 
answer. There is nothing so unites authority and 
reason as moral law. It gives a reason, an adequate 
reason, one that it will discuss with you at length. 
If, in the end, however, you show yourself unreas- 
onable, and ask, Why should I do right, why love my 
neighbor ? it puts the ictus of authority on the word, 
and retorts, Because it is right. There is an oppor- 
tunity for unending progress in morals ; the same 
opportunity that there is for an increasing knowledge 
of human nature, human society, and of those lines 
of relation by which we are linked to each other and 
to God. Reasoning may moil there, and mount here, 
as it is able ; may search foundations and climb to 
cap-stones, and our moral sentiments shall expand 
with every step of the process ; shall cast a new and 
more mellow light on things near and remote ; shal 1 



l66 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

lift and spread for us the harsh, hard, concentrate 
commands of the two tablets, that strike down hot 
and heavy upon us, like beams direct from the sun, 
over the whole landscape of human contemplation, 
breaking out in brilliant hues everywhere : yet, after 
all, there shall be an underlying tone of strength, 
that shall put us as certainly on the track of authority 
in the moral law of God, as of personal power in the 
voice of the musician, pouring his soul through the 
vaulted chambers of sound, and bringing his senti- 
ments to the birth of harmony. Growth there is in 
morals, but growth within the circuit of law, growth 
that carries law higher and higher, and sheds it with 
increasing benignity along the whole horizon of 
events. Says Martineau : " And once at least there 
has been a Christ ; not seeking to thrust up human 
nature from below, but to raise it from above ; know- 
ing that its earth could produce nothing, except for 
its pure and spreading heaven ; and so, coming down 
upon it, as an angel-soul from the highest regions of 
the spirit ; speaking seldom to it of its happiness, 
constantly of its holiness ; dwelling little on the ar- 
rangements, and much upon the responsibilities, of 
life ; pitying its woes, as it pities them itself in mo- 
ments of truest aspirations, not with mere nervous 
sympathy, but with god-like and healing mercy ; as- 
suming its place in the midst of God, and on the 
surface of eternity, and from this sublime position as 
a base computing its obligations, and uttering oracles 
of its destiny." 

A last objection of which we shall speak is, that 
frequently found in the writings of the distinguished 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 167 

moralist, who has more than once enforced his views 
from this place — Dr. Hopkins. It is this : the notion 
of an ultimate right is not rational. It makes an act, 
and not an end, the aim of effort. He says, " In all 
rational action, the central conception is that of an 

end, activity in itself cannot be a good. If it 

had no results, it would be good for nothing 

No man can adopt right as an ultimate end with no 
regard to good." With this, Bentham quite agrees. 
He says, " Only in so far, then, as it produces happi- 
ness or misery, can an act be properly called virtuous 
or vicious. Virtue and vice are but useless qualities, 
unless estimated by their influences on the creation 
of pleasure and pain." There is so much truth in 
these assertions, and yet they involve such subtle 
error, that we need to proceed with caution, lest we 
lose a portion of the one, or admit a part of the other. 
The alleged objection is this :- all rational effort 
makes an end, makes some form of good, the object 
of its exertion. This system imposes an action, a 
line of conduct on man, without referring him to the 
good to be obtained by it ; therein, it is not rational, 
it overlooks the open or disguised purpose which the 
human mind always has in view. To the premises 
we assent. All rational acts, that is, all acts which 
spring from, and rest back upon, reasoning processes, 
the independent, intellectual movements of the mind, 
find their impulse in some good to be obtained, some 
sensibility to be gratified. We further accept the 
assertion, that a sensibility is the condition to all 
good, and indirectly to all right action, since action 
becomes right by its relation to human well-being. 



1 68 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

But these premises do not involve the two conse- 
quences that are drawn from them. First, that to 
perform an action because it is right, is irrational ; 
second, that the action is simply right, because of 
the good consequent upon it. They involve this con- 
clusion : that to do an act as right merely, is so far 
in oversight of the end of the act, and is obedience 
rather than reasoning. The word, irrational, prop- 
erly means absurd, opposed to reason. All that it 
can justly mean in the syllogism : A rational act in- 
volves an end ; to do right as right involves no end ; 
therefore, to do right is irrational, is an act which is 
not the product of, or guided by, reasoning. This 
conclusion is quite barren and harmless. So is an 
act of sight in this sense irrational ; that is, one that 
does not ground itself on reason. This, in reference 
to the right, is exactly what we claim ; that it is 
something more than mere reasoning, sending forth 
efforts towards pleasures, and assigning these pleas- 
ures in turn as their ground or reason. There is 
authority, command, in the right, and obedience to a 
command comes in by way of arrest and suspension 
of a purely, self-poised activity, an activity which Dr. 
Hopkins would term a rational activity. Let us try 
to put apart, and keep apart in thought, these two 
aspects or bearings of an act ; one of which he so 
clearly recognizes ; both of which we accept. The 
same act in one view is wise, in another is right. As 
wise it rests upon reasons that can be given, ends 
that are pursued by it. But as wise, and because it 
is wise, it is something more than wise, to wit, right ; 
that is our moral nature comes in with additional and 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 1 69 

self-poised action to make this affirmation. Now, to 
perform it as right is obedience, and is in oversight 
of the end ; to do it as wise is rational, and is in view 
of the end. Let me illustrate. A father lays a com- 
mand upon a son. The son sees the wisdom of the 
injunction, he also knows it to be authoritative. The' 
wisdom of the act does not cover or conceal its au- 
thority. He may perform it independently, because 
it is well that it should be done, and so do a rational 
thing ; or he may perform it as enjoined, and thus 
show obedience. The last act is not rational in the 
sense that it springs from the mind's normal, unaided 
impulse ; it is rational in the sense that, to do the 
act as it was enjoined, and because it was enjoined, 
in ignorance or in oversight of its object, is yet well. 
What we object to exactly in the systems of Bentham, 
of Dr. Hopkins, and of many others is, that they lack 
authority ; they miss the moral precept as law. 

No more is the second conclusion found in the pre- 
mises, to wit : that the obligation of an action as right, 
springs wholly from the good it proposes. Says Dr. 
Hopkins, " No man is under obligation to do an act 
morally right for which there is not a reason besides 
its being right, and on the ground of which it is 
right." If this passage is meant to affirm that there 
are certain grounds or conditions on account of 
which every right action is right, we assent to it ; 
but if it is intended to affirm, as we suppose it is, 
that these grounds or reasons are all that is meant 
by right, we object to it, as absolutely destructive of 
morals in their independent, self-asserted authority. 
To recur to our illustration, it is easy to conceive of 



170 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. . 

the command of a parent, that is not wise, and thus 
to divide the two elements of fitness and authority. 
Conscience, on the other hand, the voice and author- 
ity of God in the soul of man, grounds its commands 
exclusively on wisdom ; at least, on that which is 
thought to be wise, and there is no actual division 
possible between the wisdom and the moral authority 
of an act : yet this does not make the first the sole 
ground and source of the last, since wisdom as wis- 
dom, as the sagacious search after good, has, as we 
have carefully shown, no authority in our constitution, 
nor power of command over us. In other words, obli- 
gation, duty, will not hinge, cannot be made to hinge, 
on pleasure. Bentham is far more logical in insisting 
that interest, pleasure, good, are all with which we 
have to do ; and in scorning duty, ought, obligation 
as the mists and chimeras of the mind, than is one 
in striving to evoke these mighty shades of author- 
ity in the spiritual world, from the sensibilities which 
find play in our purely physical and intellectual 
constitution ; all that belong to us till we have rec- 
ognized our independent, moral constitution, with its 
supporting emotions. One is not to hold fast to the 
fruits of a system, while rejecting the grounds on 
which they rest. If morality has not an independent, 
perceptive basis in the constitution, it can have no 
independent sensibilities with which to support and 
reward virtue. We beg leave to suggest, that Dr. 
Hopkins overlooks this fact, and while laying com- 
mendable stress on the rational element in ethics, 
goes further than he of right can, in supporting his 
view by the blessedness obedience confers. This he 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. I/I 

is very willing to oppose to the happiness of the util- 
itarian, whereas it is of the same nature. Blessed- 
ness as a preeminent, ethical sentiment can be the 
fruit alone of a preeminent, ethical intuition. The 
theory of morals is so central in all questions of char- 
acter, of social and of civil import ; is so subtile in 
itself; and has been so perplexed by deficient and 
false presentations, that we shall be excusable in 
occupying a little time with it. We shall be without 
excuse if we fail to do all that we can to make it clear. 
We wish further, therefore, to point out some of the 
relations of this primitive, intuitive right which we 
have insisted on. 

The first of them is its connection with happiness. 
We suppose that the highest happiness will always 
be secured by obedience to the right ; and this for 
two reasons. The universe is under the government 
of God, and he has so constructed its natural and its 
moral laws, that they run parallel with each other. 
One of the surest ways, therefore, to reach good, 
physical, intellectual and social good in a broad and 
complete form, is to render obedience to the moral law. 
This law was inlaid in our constitution by our Heav- 
enly Father, and has received from him the guidance 
of many direct precepts in reference to this very end 
of putting us in the lines of natural law, and of 
reaping the good under them which comes from obe- 
dience. Moreover, the moral nature itself involves 
powerful sensibilities. Inseparable from right, is the 
satisfaction of obedience, are our own approval and the 
approval of God. Hence the emotions immediately 
consequent on the independent nature of the right 



172 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

so reward virtuous action, so augment the balance of 
pleasure in purely ethical conduct, as to cause this 
always to be the path of highest enjoyment, if not 
at once, yet finally. This last and highest form of 
good, coming always in overwhelming amount to 
settle the results as respects pleasure, can only flow 
from obedience to an independent law, since it is the 
sense of obedience that is the ground of it. The 
satisfaction of wisdom, of sagacity in selecting and 
pursuing enjoyments, is very different, and can itself 
constitute no ground of deciding between two lines 
of conduct,, since, whichever we choose in view of 
their consequences, we shall commend the choice to 
ourselves as wise. A sense of sagacity accompanies 
the rogue as readily as the honest man. 

For these two reasons, then, the government of 
God and the rewards of the moral nature itself, the 
highest happiness does always flow from obedience 
to the moral law. The happiness conferred, the con- 
sequences of an action in the good it bestows, are 
always a test, therefore, of its character as right or 
wrong. If we were sure of the entire results of an 
action, we should thereby be made sure of its moral 
quality. Yet this enjoyment conditioned on obedi- 
ence is, much of it, not the ground of the law, nor 
the motive in obedience, but the consequence of obe- 
dience..! When a distressed and perplexed Cranmer 
is striving to nerve himself up to the final effort, 
he does not anticipate the triumph and satisfaction 
which are to follow when the conflict is past, and the 
question finally and favorably settled. In an intense, 
moral struggle, there is always a fulfillment of those 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 1 73 

remarkable words of Christ : " He that findeth his 
life shall lose it : and he that loseth his life for my 
sake shall find it." What Dr. Hopkins so well says in 
defence of the existence of disinterested affection, is, 
in exact form and with higher import, applicable to 
disinterested obedience to the moral precept. His 
language is explicit and strong : " The desire is for 
the happiness of others, and the moment it ceases to 
be that — that disinterestedly — the affection itself is 
gone, and with it, the very source of our happiness. 
The gold is become dim, or rather dross, and the 
most fine gold is changed." Thus the profound 
questions of obedience, the deep conflicts of our 
nature with sin, are usually settled in comparative 
darkness ; are often won in deep discouragement, 
and the storm-clouds part only after the crisis has 
been passed, the moral victory gained. Then, for 
the first time, it is both seen and felt, that we yielded 
little or nothing in real good, and gained all. 

There is also another relation of right to happi- 
ness, that portion of happiness which arises from our 
physical and intellectual constitution, aside from the 
moral element. It cannot be shown — nay, the re- 
verse is in many cases obvious — that this portion of 
good, which alone the utilitarian is at liberty to con- 
sider, will always pronounce for virtue with an over- 
plus of pleasure. Indeed, if our moral constitution 
could be gotten rid of, there would, at least, be a 
grave doubt whether many of the tasteful and intel- 
lectual forms of self-indulgence ; or, indeed, some of 
the grosser forms, considering the native proclivities 
of the persons whose pleasures are involved, would 



174 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

not, so far as our visible horizon extends, result in a 
balance of enjoyment, credited and paid to the par- 
ties who have sought their own ends. At least the 
moral problem, which this world is said to present, 
of disorder and maladjustment, and whose existence 
calls for another world of correction and redistri-l 
bution, plainly implies this : that good, omitting the 
moral emotions themselves, does not seem uniformly 
to accompany virtue. Nevertheless, these secondary 
forms of good are admitted by us, as steadily entering 
into the consequences of moral actions, and consti- 
tuting a portion — though only a portion — of those 
conditions or considerations, on the ground of which, 
the conscience pronounces it right. A poor man 
asks of me aid. He needs it. I can readily bestow 
it. Now this relation of my gift to his good or pros- 
perity is what leads me to say, or at least my neigh- 
bors to say, that I should bestow it ; that I ought to 
bestow it. The difference between the intuitive and 
the utilitarian philosopher lies in reference to such an 
act precisely here : both agree that the virtuous act 
finds its spring or occasion in the physical good ; but 
the last adds, this covers the entire problem. The 
good given, and the good, under natural law, conse- 
quent thereon, are the entire motive and obligation 
of the act ; the act as right, accepts this as a final 
and complete explanation. Nay, says the intuitive 
philosopher, had it not been for this physical good 
that I confer, there would, indeed, have been no vir- 
tuous act to perform ; but on this opportunity or 
occasion, my moral nature steps in, lays the act on 
me as obligatory, and gives me the satisfaction in 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 1 75 

performing it of having reached a higher end than 
that of pleasure in thus fulfilling the moral law of 
my being. The relation, then, of happiness to right 
is concisely this : the highest happiness always fol- 
lows from obedience to it, because of God's govern- 
ment and our own moral nature. Happiness is thus 
a practical characteristic, and hence, often a test of 
right action. Again, good, under purely natural law, 
enters as that ground or condition in actions which 
leads us to call them right, but is not the measure or 
source of that right. The parent commands the 
child to share his playthings with his fellow. The 
act has now two reasons : the enjoyment of a brother, 
and the will of a father. Thus moral acts have two 
grounds ; the good conferred, and the will of God, 
our Creator, expressed in the voice of conscience 
concerning that good. 

The next relation of this notion of right is to prac- 
tice, to daily conduct. Precepts, rules, laws, are the 
forms which the ethical element assumes, and must 
assume in practice. It is acts to be done that are 
enjoined upon us in the word of God. This is pro- 
hibited, and that is commanded, and through a series 
of separate considerations, the law finds its way slowly 
into our lives. The philosophy of a supreme end is 
philosophy, not practice. Who can wait to hunt up 
his supreme end before he begins to live ! What 
were the relations of life to morality before the phil- 
osophy of a supreme end sprang up, or still are where 
it remains an unknown speculation ? We live by 
details. Our duties and dangers are those of the 
hour, and require for the most part the solution of 



176 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

specific precepts. Precepts do indeed rest back on 
principles, yet few grasp the principles ; most employ 
the rule closest at hand. Our lives are shaped under 
laws obeyed, acts performed, rather than under the 
abstract conception of a supreme end. Whatever 
may be the theory of morals, the real way-marks of 
life stand at the entrance of this and that line of 
conduct, this and that form of action. 

Indeed, is there any such thing as a supreme good, 
to be pursued through light and darkness, in all the 
accidents and incidents of life ? We think not, unless 
we are content to mean thereby obedience to a moral 
law, which Dr. Hopkins so carefully excludes from, 
and contrasts with, the supreme good. A good can- 
not be a supreme good unless its pursuit is obliga- 
tory ; or unless, by its superiority of pleasures, it sur- 
passes all other good. What good does this, except 
that good which arises from obedience to the moral 
law as a law ? Other forms of good than moral good 
are not supreme in either of these senses ; no one 
of them is obligatory over others ; no one of them 
uniformly surpasses every other. The life and the 
philosophy alike, therefore, which refuse to accept the 
moral law as ultimate, and start off in a pursuit of 
good, have no right to talk about a supreme good, 
unless this supreme pleasure is to arise from an action 
of all the powers, each in its own province. Goods, 
many goods, appetitive and intellectual, social and soli- 
tary, should be the watch-word of this philosophy, not 
a supreme good, since there is no such single good. 
Advantages of all sorts are to be sought for, sought 
where they are to be found, in any and every portion 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. I'J'J 

of our constitution. The philosopher may make his 
list of pleasures as exhaustive as he pleases ; may go 
as high as he can — provided he does not assume an 
independent moral nature, whose existence he has 
denied — may go as deep as he can, may sort and 
parcel out his enjoyments with utmost skill, may cau- 
tiously establish a rank among them with its " law of 
limitations ;" and if others accept his conclusions, he 
and they will be guided as to what pleasures are to 
be sought, and when and where they are to be sought, 
but there must remain throughout divisibility and 
separation, many distinct forms of good, not a su- 
preme good. How can such a one still say that 
blessedness is the supreme end, the blessedness of 
God and of his rational universe, and give thereby 
any more than a nominal, verbal unity to action ? I 
may say of a community, prosperity is its supreme 
end or aim ; but I do not thereby define any one ob- 
ject which is to be pursued by it in seeking this pros- 
perity. These objects will remain many, and I can 
only mean to say, that they are all to be sought only 
so far as they minister to prosperity. The unity, 
therefore, so far as I have reached any, lies not in 
the objects aimed at — these may be the products of 
ten, twenty, an hundred branches of industry — but in 
the law or precept under which these are severally to 
be labored for, to wit: that they shall tend to the 
prosperity of all. Thus blessedness, as a compound 
of all pleasures, presents no single supreme end, and 
when so spoken of, looks vaguely towards some law 
or method by which a thousand separate pleasures 
or ends are to be gained. The practical test of the 



178 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

wisdom of each action would be, Does it conform to 
those rules of judgment by which pleasures replace 
each other, by which now one, now another, is pur- 
sued ? Thus, this philosophy of ends travels its en- 
tire circuit only to get back to a law, to escape which 
it first set out. 

If, now, any choose to accept this result, and to 
say with Bentham, that the office of the moral guide 
is that of a " scout ; " that it is his labor to scurry on 
and race around in pursuit of the results of action ; 
to contemplate consequences, immediate and remote, 
and frame precepts upon them ; these may ask, Since 
you have admitted that happiness is a test of moral 
action, why are we not at least practically safe and 
wise in shaping action in reference to it? The 
answer is easy and decisive. There is very much 
besides the consequences which flow from action, 
which helps us to decide on its character. These 
results are often very obscure and uncertain ; and 
in their anticipation, suffer, above all other elements 
in the problem, perversion by our fears, our hopes, 
our desires. The moral judgment is quickened, 
corrected and sustained by the moral sensibilities, 
the affections which gather about it, and become the 
means of speedy and delicate analysis and inter- 
pretation of action. The ethical, like the esthetical 
sense, gives rise in its cultivation to peculiar and 
very sensitive states of emotion, and these respond 
with decisive and immediate power to the moral 
qualities of an action. Its concealment, its circum- 
vention, its openness, its magnanimity are scented in 
the air by these watchful attendants of conscience, 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 1 79 

quickly snuffing the trail of duty. To decide on the 
beauty of a painting, requires a sensitive heart, re- 
flecting in on the intellect a just appreciation of its 
sentiments : to decide on the moral bearings of con- 
duct requires a lively appreciation of its true, its 
intrinsic quality, and this is reached by the moral 
sensibilities quite as much as by a cold, logical 
development of its consequences. The prism, dis- 
solving light into colors, discloses the beauty that 
is in it : the affections, the moral medium of the 
soul, separate conduct into its secret, its sweet cur- 
rents of emotion, and thus lay open the good that 
is in it. 

Again, moral principles are interdependent, are 
parts of a system, cast much light on each other, lend 
each other authority, and become, through the great 
inquiry that has been expended upon them, guides, 
far better than our ability, in any given case, to trace 
the results of action. They inspire a certain confi- 
dence, and lead us to feel, that they will, by their 
own moral power, bear down and defeat very prob- 
able, natural consequences, that are ready to confront 
them and force them back. I may say universally, 
those who ground their moral judgments on the re- 
sults which they anticipate, in each exigency, from 
action, are trimmers, time-servers ; and those who re- 
pose on moral principles in the face of predicted evils, 
are reformers and progressionists. Take such a con- 
troversy as that concerning slavery. How long was 
emancipation opposed by those who gave a weak 
assent, indeed, to purely ethical reasons, but always 
found in their horoscope such contingencies and 



1 80 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

combinations as to indicate that the time had not 
come. Indeed, men usually fail of obedience in the 
hour of trial by a calculation of consequences, and by 
substituting the partial conclusions so arrived at for 
the clear decisions of the moral reason. Once more, 
most of the instructions of Revelation assume the 
form of precepts, while very little effort is made to 
trace the natural consequences of particular actions. 
Hence, it becomes an efficient guide only through 
obedience, an obedience which justifies itself as obe- 
dience without much foresight. The children of God 
go very often, not knowing whither they go. Thus 
practical ethics are ever assuming the form of rules 
laid down, rather than of reasons rendered under the 
natural consequences of conduct : not that the first 
excludes the last, but that those are more immediate, 
pertinent and efficient than these. 

A third relation of an intrinsic right, is to the ra- 
tional, intellectual element in our constitution. We 
suppose that conscience is meant to supplement this, 
not to displace it. Our reasoning processes are 
called forth to the full in unfolding those relations of 
conduct on which conscience pronounces ; but the 
supreme authority in action, the last appeal is not 
made to the judgment. Inquiry, investigation, are 
the order of the day in the ethical court, but that 
which goes forth from it is certified with an authori- 
tative seal. Conscience, in its stubborn command, is 
somewhat of the nature of an instinct, and yet it 
leads us constantly out of blind obedience into a ra- 
tional comprehension of the consequences of virtuous 
action and satisfaction therein.'xThe philosophy of 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE l8l 

ends, when it comes, shows to iis that that which we 
have obeyed as right has been truly right, and we 
may hence walk with open vision. The child who 
has been fortunate enough to fall under a truly wise 
government, grows up under, and thus into, the wis- 
dom of that discipline, and, at length, finds its own 
view of good wholly consonant with that laid upon 
it. Thus obedience passes constantly from its servile 
form into one of freedom, into one of comprehension 
— an intelligent rendering of that which the soul 
gives with indescribable pleasure. It is as if the 
bee, building by instinct, should come, at length, to 
an apprehension of its work, and marvel at the per- 
fect skill, the mathematical exactness of its labor. 
Thus with man ; the instinctive, the authoritative 
element, is more and more taken up into the rational 
and the .voluntary element, though these receive their 
bias and form from those. Our life becomes more 
spontaneous, without being less exact. 

Again, we direct attention to the relation of the 
right to God. Dr. Hopkins writes, in his answer to 
Dr. McCosh, " It was said to me recently, ' we are to 
love God because we love virtue,' as if the love of God 
were not virtue. In the same way we are to love 
our fellow-men, not for their sakes, but for the sake 
of the right." And further on, " I have seen quite 
enough of this abstract, hard, godless, loveless love 
of right and virtue, instead of the love of God and of 
man." This passage is a good illustration of the 
difficulty often met with in understanding an argu- 
ment preparatory to answering it. If we mean by 
the love of God, the love which flows from approval, 



1 82 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

as the person above referred to plainly intended, 
then, I ask, On what is that satisfaction in God's 
character which calls forth affection based, save his 
virtue ? If he were not virtuous above others, evi- 
dently he could not be loved above others. Charac- 
ter is the basis of love, and virtue is the basis of 
character. If God were vicious, it would be vicious 
to love him in this sense of the word. The same is 
equally true of our fellow-men. The above language 
becomes plausible when the word love is used in a 
different sense, and one not intended by the person 
who affirmed, " we love God because we love virtue." 
This second meaning is the love of benevolence, or 
good-will. Now we may have good-will toward a 
devil, and that we do will doubtless be a proof of our 
virtue. No man is beyond our commiseration, and 
the depth of our compassion shows how far our moral 
convictions have gone down into the soul. To love 
God with the love of good-will is, doubtless, virtue, 
and not the fruit of his virtue : but the form of love 
more frequently contemplated in speaking of God, 
is not this love, which may belong to a thief as 
well, but the love of approbation, of admiration, and 
this is based on virtue. It is this law of an infinitely 
glorious life, and his perfect obedience thereto, that 
calls forth our adorative love of God ; and approxi- 
mations towards a like perfection, that attract us to- 
ward our fellow-men. This does not put the right 
above God, it puts it in God. It is the law of his 
own uncreated, perfect nature that he follows, and so 
following is virtuous. The law is above us, because 
our natures are given us ; it is within and of him, be- 



RIGHT, THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 1 83 

cause he is from all eternity. The seat of the right 
is the moral health and hygiene of Heaven, a perfect 
nature, perfectly unfolded. This excellence we bow 
before ; this holiness we worship ; this love we love ; 
not because we bear God good-will, but because the 
atmosphere of the soul is luminous everywhere with 
his glory. God is a law to himself, and, making us 
in his image, that law has become a law to us ; and, 
through it, we go back to the comprehension and 
admiration and exaltation of his perfections. 

One other relation we glance at, that of the law 
of an absolute right to the doctrine of immortality. 
We find great encouragement in our belief of the last, 
from our acceptance of the first. A law of prudence, 
of wisdom, if you prefer it, is fitted to this life, is 
needed even if this is the whole of life, is not too 
much for the state we are here in. 

Not thus is it with an absolute right. Here is a 
wheel that strikes into the mechanism of our lives, 
but does not complete an entire revolution before us. 
It has a sweep of consequences and compensations 
which are not rounded to their beginning in this 
present existence. It is a law beyond what is re- 
quired for this state of being. 

Martyrdom is not a stroke of prudence. It sur- 
renders all, either for nothing, or for immortality. 
Not for nothing says conscience, leading the soul to 
the sacrifice ; hence for immortality. Every rack, 
every stake, every cross, every eye that has caught 
the inspiration of their heroism, every heart that has 
responded to their faith, has given proof to immortal- 
ity ; has disclosed its deep seats in the soul. In the 



184 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

mouth of these many witnesses shall every word be 
established. 

Fall from this wisdom, and you sink into perfect 
folly. Fail to establish this foot-hold on the invisible, 
and you go back to dust. Stumble on these heights 
of virtue, and you pass sheer down to the dead. 
Live by this lav/, and you have surrendered all, 
gained all ; have cast that which now is into the 
shadow of that which shall be. 



LECTURE VIII. 

LIBERTY. 

We said in our last lecture, that the connections 
of the mental world are not of that simple, causative 
character which belong to those of matter, but bear 
a double aspect. A law runs before our rational acts, 
and these spring up in obedience to it. In matter, 
the law is in the force, and the disclosure of it and 
its existence are identical. In mind, the law goes 
before the activity, and this arises under it, is not 
conditioned to it. This antecedent law, the right, 
we have spoken of. We have glanced at its relations 
to reason, shown their increasing coalescence ; the 
steady adoption and sanction under the authority of 
virtue, of all the wise thoughts and plans of life ; the 
sending forth of thought by virtue, both to prepare 
her path and accomplish her labors. We should also 
add, that we may not seem to omit it, the supplemen- 
tary, esthetical perception, by which all high effort 
becomes one of beauty, and gathers, from this fact, 
a peculiar exaltation and completeness. Let it be 
borne in mind, however, that these guides, of whom 
the royal one is virtue, run before the activity, pro- 
pound themselves to the soul for its acceptance, and 
do not in any way accomplish their own counsels. 
We come, therefore, to the second portion of the law 
of connections in the mind — that which defines the 
nature of the executive force. Here, we encounter 



1 86 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

liberty, instead of necessity ; a free and spontaneous, 
instead of a causal activity. This notion of a free-will 
has suffered many perverted and inadequate state- 
ments, and has encountered opposition from all classes 
of philosophers. The attack has been by no means 
confined to materialism, in its complete form, or in- 
cipient stages. Indeed, we are not dealing historically 
with our subject, and have made no effort to keep apart 
those many phases of belief which slowly ripen into 
materialism, or striven to define the transition point be- 
yond which the word, materialist, ought to take effect. 
To prosper in our inquiry, we must thoroughly un- 
derstand ourselves, and this we do the more easily in 
keeping somewhat clear of others, and first running 
out our own lines of thought. Let us revert to our 
conception of a cause, as it is in contrast with this, 
that spontaneity and liberty are to be understood. 
Under all physical phenomena, the mind puts a force 
which is their occasion or cause. The cause coexists 
with the effect ; the two are inseparable, the visible 
and invisible sides of the same thing ; the phenom- 
enon or outer form, the nomenon or inner essence, 
of the one being. These causes, strictly, are never 
in any way known to our senses, yet the mind con- 
ceives them as determined, fixed, measured forces, 
which are capable of certain results, and no others ; 
forces from which the specified effects must follow, 
in an invariable amount and order. Other external 
causes may be strong enough to^ reach and modify the 
causes contemplated, and thus vary the results, but the 
forces in these are shaped for certain effects, and are 
capable of no others. When we come to mind, we 



LIBERTY. 187 

see this conception of fixed forces is not applicable. 
Mind as mind is spontaneous in its action. By this 
we mean, that its activities spring from itself, and do 
not, as is the case with matter, exist in it, as definite 
realized forces. This is shown best by the variable, 
unequal, independent way in which they spring up. 
A clock runs for a certain length of time. It is con- 
ditioned from the outset to a fixed sequence, and a 
limited extent of activity. The same is true of the 
most complex, chemical and physical changes, is true 
of all events which do not come immediately under 
the influence and government of those spontaneous 
agents which have their seat in the invisible world. 
Not thus is it with the activities of mind. Take the 
same person, make external conditions as exactly 
alike as possible, and you do not secure at different 
times the same succession of internal states, nor any 
obvious approximation to it. A prisoner, within the 
narrow walls of his cell, with differences of external 
condition very trifling, differences that find and leave 
the body in a state almost identical, day by day, may, 
in successive days, present very diverse states of 
mind, and show no two periods in which the round of 
thought and feeling is, for any considerable time, the 
same. The mechanical precision, order and period 
of physical phenomena are all gone, and in place of 
them there are fitfulness, irregularity, every species 
of inequality. We explain this by the notion of the 
spontaneity of mind. It is not a measured force, 
gauged to certain facts, but from itself, and of itself, 
with fitful efficiency, evokes its thoughts and feel- 
ings. 



1 88 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

Again, this is seen. in the contrast between sensa- 
tions and thoughts. The one are determinate, obey 
perfectly a law of sequence. We see and feel what 
are within the reach of the eye and hand, and can 
see and feel nothing else. Iron is never soft to us, 
or velvet hard. The sensations are the same in form 
and order under like external conditions. The mind 
from within itself has no power of varying them. 
This fact finds explanation in the entrance from with- 
out of true causation, and this causation stands, in the 
phenomena it occasions, distinguished from, and in 
contrast with, the pure activity of the mind. We do 
have the two classes of facts in our own intellectual 
experience, and find them so diverse, that the mind, 
for this reason, refers the one set — to wit, sensations 
— to outside, fixed forces ; and the other set — to 
wit, thoughts — to inside, native, spontaneous power. 
The classification of mental phenomena turns on 
this very distinction between fixed and variable facts ; 
causal and spontaneous force. The first carries 
with it all experiences physical in their origin ; the 
other, all purely mental. Break down this distinc- 
tion, and sensations and feelings are inseparable. 
All do so divide them, and in the division recognize 
spontaneous forces and causal forces. 

Once more, observe the connections of mental 
acts, and see how these disclose their spontaneous 
character. Take thought; for instance, the succes- 
sive steps of thinking involved in a theorem of 
Geometry. Is there any adhesion between one item 
of proof and the next ; any link of force, compelling 
the mind to pass through the successive stages of 



LIBERTY. 1 89 

the argument? If there is, how happens it that all 
minds do not run alike through the entire circuit of 
proof, as all sleds slide down hill ? Is it not plain 
that mind itself as mind, as rational power of a given 
grade, sees, evokes spontaneously the serial conclu- 
sions, compacts them, and carries them on to the 
goal of the reasoning. There is no external, no in- 
dependent force, in the first half of a proposition, to 
call forth the last. The connection between the two 
halves lies in the mind itself, and that, too, in its vari- 
able, spontaneous power, which it may or may not put 
forth. What is attention but a calling out, by the mind 
itself, of its activity, and thus a clear disclosure of the 
variable force which is in it. So, too, the feelings are 
a changeable response of the mind to certain percep- 
tions or intellectual states, and these states, though 
conditions of this emotional activity, are plainly not 
causes of it, do not create it in kind and quantity. 

If it now be granted that physical phenomena are 
fixed, and mental phenomena variable, showing slight 
dependence on external conditions-; that the se- 
quence, in the one instance, flows firmly on to its 
completion, and, in the other, suffers constant arrest 
and change ; then these become the accepted data 
on which we predicate, in the one case a connection 
through a fixed cause, or causation ; in the other, a 
connection through a variable power, or spontaneity. 
A power that is variable within itself, is shown by 
its variability to be self-originating ; since it so far 
assigns itself its own conditions, calls itself forth. 
A fixed force is a dependent, originated force, as the 
conditions, the limits that are assigned it, up to 



I9O SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

which it is brought, within which it is compressed, 
are received from abroad. No one, indeed, can con- 
dition, can assign limits to a force, who cannot in- 
crease and diminish that force ; who cannot put 
himself into and under it. And in assigning it 
limits, he actually does put himself into it and un- 
der it. Variability, then, the ability to increase and 
diminish action — the constant characteristic of the 
mind — has its seat in spontaneity, power ; invaria- 
bility, the inability to increase or diminish action, 
has its seat in causation, force : and these two con- 
ceptions must be kept forever apart, and the more so, 
since they are blended in us through our physical 
and spiritual constitutions, the interwoven parts of 
one fabric, or being. 

We have not yet reached liberty, though we have 
taken a long stride toward it. If pure mental action 
is spontaneous, it is easy to believe that a portion of 
that action is free ; that is, takes place in view of two 
distinct lines of conduct, either of which is equally 
open to it. Liberty is more than spontaneity in this, 
that it is the power of spontaneity consciously em- 
ployed in a choice between two actions. Spontaneity 
finds exercise in thought, expends itself therein ; but 
in choice, the mind first arrests its action, observes 
the ground before it, and then consciously, distinctly, 
redirects itself. This is liberty — a use of spontaneity 
under definitely realized conditions, involving an al- 
ternative. If the mind were not spontaneous in all 
of its action, it could not be free in any of it ; or at 
least, if it had not spontaneous power to employ, it 
could not make this exact use of it known as liberty. 



LIBERTY. 191 

Liberty involves spontaneity, the ability to originate 
power, and is the exercise of it in view of an alterna- 
tive, both branches of which are perfectly open to it. 
The necessitarian says, the mind, the will, is, under 
these circumstances conditioned to a certain act, to 
one only of the acts under consideration, by the con- 
joint effect of its own constitution, and the influences 
to which it is subject ; that is to say, the force to be 
expended by it is a causal one, established and fixed 
in its measure and form of being. Says the liberta- 
rian, the force conceived is spontaneous power, neither 
conditioned in itself, nor out of itself to fixed results. 
What is the proof of liberty ? Many strive to de- 
rive it from consciousness. Herein, we think, they 
err. All that can be truly referred to consciousness, 
will hardly, under any circumstances, become a mat- 
ter of discussion. We are, indeed, capable of great 
prevarication, and can surround almost any subject 
with uncertainty, but scarcely of denying the very 
thing that is in the mind itself. If liberty were a 
fact of mind, it would, no more than thought, or feel- 
ing, or volition, be open to doubt. Liberty is not a 
phenomenon, but the alleged nature of a certain 
class of phenomena. It is the relations of the mind's 
acts to the mind's power, that is under discussion ; 
and this sub-phenomenal connection never appears 
in consciousness, but is decided on as to its existence 
■ and character by the mind alone. Now the mind 
brings forward certain ideas to the explanation of a 
certain class of facts, and these ideas have no other 
authority than this persistent assertion of them by 
the mind. Herein, they all rest finally on the same 



192 SCIENCE > PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

basis with each other, and also on the same basis 
with every belief. Knowledge being only referable 
to reiterated affirmations of mind. 

What are the facts, then, in view of which spon- 
taneity, liberty are asserted, are proffered in elucida- 
tion ? They are, first, the variable, changeable actions 
of men. Human conduct presents no such sequence 
as to suggest to us the notion of the invariable law of 
causation, but, in our language one to another, in our 
claims one of another, in an assertion of our own 
power, in forecasting the results of conduct, we rec- 
ognize the idea of liberty, and constantly imply or 
directly affirm its existence. \ So true is this, that no 
theory of necessity ever prevents men, in cases of 
personal interest, from treating others as if they were 
free ; as if they had other lines of power in them 
than those of barren, blind causation. All anger, 
indignation, contempt, are as ill-timed as passion 
toward a brute, if this notion of liberty be invalid. 
Whatever may be said of the thoughts of men, their 
emotions are all based on liberty, are brutish and 
maniacal without it. j[ 

Again, the great fact, the all-inclusive fact in hu- 
man society of responsibility, calls forth this notion 
of liberty as its only explanation. There is no axiom 
in morals, nor indeed anywhere, if this is not one ; 
responsibility is proportioned to power. No one Can 
claim either of two forms of conduct from his fellows, 
unless they have the power to enter upon either at 
their option. Here, indeed, is the grand occasion of 
freedom. The moral law as antecedent to action, laid 
upon it as an imperative, is irrational and unjust 



LIBERTY. 193 

without the ability to obey it. If" the mind, in each 
case, is still conditioned to its own state and circum- 
stances, then guilt, responsibility, duty, are not per- 
tinent conceptions, since these all require sufficient 
power to do the obligatory act. I know very well 
that the necessitarian has a meaning for these words, 
and a form of their application. What I affirm is, 
that he does not reach and explain their full signifi- 
cance in the popular, the general, mind. It is ex- 
actly this more profound feeling which underlies the 
word, guilt, resting back on a belief in the complete 
power of the guilty party to have adopted an adverse 
line of action, that is always fighting against the phi- 
losophy of necessity, and preventing its universal 
acceptance. If that philosophy were correct, it would 
never have been offered but once to men. They 
would have leaped to its conclusions. It is a secret 
sense of its insufficiency to account for obligation, to 
cover the deeper moral phenomena of our nature, 
that holds men back from it, and, when they have 
nominally conceded its truth, allows them to make 
claims and impose duties, in language and form, in- 
consistent with it. Lay aside all the confusion of 
philosophy, appeal directly to the moral judgments 
of men, their first spontaneous conviction, and the 
libertarian carries the argument, men assent to, and 
assert, liberty as the ground and basis of morality. 
So true is this, that every necessitarian steals his lan- 
guage, as far as possible, from the vocabulary of lib- 
erty ; warps the enunciation of his doctrine over 
toward the popular sentiment, and strives to affirm 
and deny necessity in the same breath. Thus, we 



194 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

hear of a moral necessity, and a physical necessity, as 
if there were two kinds of necessity, and one at least a 
trifle less necessary than the other. Liberty is turned 
into pantomine, a mere show of powers ; yet the pan- 
tonine is patiently played out to delight and pacify 
the populace. The deity has been stolen from her 
seat, but the worship goes on, for no one dares to con- 
fess or proclaim the sacrilege. Thus tyrants maintain 
forms whose force and import they have abolished. 

A third proof, we find in the nature of motives. 
If a thought, not yet before the mind, has no hold 
upon it, by which the intellect is constrained to think 
it ; if thought is rather the spontaneous power and 
pursuit by the mind of its own ends, readily may we 
accept a like connection between its other states. 
In which way ought we to conceive an object like 
wealth ? As possessed of an efficient force by which 
it acts on the mind and draws it to itself? or, as giv- 
ing the direction in which the spontaneous power of 
the soul goes forth ? Is a desire occasioned, caused 
in the soul by the coveted object, as heat awakens 
molecular motion in matter ; or is a desire the self- 
originated activity of the soul toward certain things ? 
Plainly, the latter. There is nothing whatever to 
justify the opposite conception of an efficient force 
in objects of desire, acting on the mind. Neither is 
there any more proof of a force in the desire by 
t which it occasions and necessitates a volition. The 
volition follows, or fails to follow, according to the 
external possibilities of the case, and the present di- 
rection of the soul's spontaneity. The desire itself, 
as a portion of that spontaneity, is dependent upon 



LIBERTY. 195 

it, and this portion evinces no power to control the 
remainder ; to involve and constrain by its own force 
a certain amount of executive force, directed in a 
compulsory pursuit of the object. All such concep- 
tions are alien to the mind, and will not bear exam- 
ination. A cause, always the source, and exclusively 
the source of necessity in events, precedes and im- 
mediately accompanies the effect, and pours into that 
effect a fixed amount of force : a motive, or at least 
the gratification proposed in action, follows the action, 
and suffers the power the soul pours forth, rather 
than is the source of it. No relations can be more 
distinct than these two, that between a cause and 
effect, the one in and back of the other ; and that 
between an object of pursuit and the mind's activ- 
ities, directed towards it. Now if the object does 
not, by an efficiency of its own, cause the desire, nor 
yet the desire cause the volition, then there is no 
line of force from without, inward, but only one from 
within, outward. Yet,, there is no liberty in the or- 
dinary gratification of a single desire, because the 
spontaneity of the soul has no alternative ; it is shut 
up to this single direction. When, however, it is 
consciously placed between two forms of expenditure, 
there is an opportunity for a choice, and in this 
choice, to be finally explained by the spontaneity of 
the soul, there is found freedom. 

There is no proper choice between things of the 
same kind. Two gratifications, if they are alike, 
leave the mind indifferent between them ; if one is in- 
ferior to the other, it presents no alternative. There 
is the semblance of liberty, but not real liberty, in a 



I96 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

choice between two and four hours of pleasure, since 
there is only an apparent, not a real alternative. 
The mind is not irrational and absurd because it is 
spontaneous, and its liberty is present to open the 
way to wise action, not to preposterous action. Lib- 
erty, spontaneous power, is not exercised by the soul 
in flat contradiction of its reason, because it may be 
so exercised,, and therefore, a fallacious, deceptive al- 
ternative, is to it no real alternative. Coins, marked 
to the senses one and four dollars, give no play to 
liberty, any more than the possibility of walking on 
one's hands, makes this, in contrast with walking on 
one's feet, a matter of choice. Is there, then, in hu- 
man action any real alternative, or is liberty, after 
all, a dormant power through the want of an oppor- 
tunity for its exercise ? If all enjoyments can be 
brought to one grade or standard, and measured 
thereon as greater or less, then liberty disappears, 
since we have only in each case to bring forward our 
rule, to decide by it the question of degrees, and forth- 
with all liberty becomes irrational, absurd. Indeed? 
such would be the results of utilitarianism, resolving 
all actions into a pursuit of pleasure, and bringing 
pleasures, for a test, to the sensibilities to be played 
on by them. 

Our moral nature, however, gives a true alterna- 
tive to the mind. Conscience both renders liberty 
necessary, that its law may be obeyed ; and possible, 
by giving a new, a diverse, a truly independent line 
of action to the soul. The spontaneity of the soul 
finds the play known as choice, as freedom, through 
the moral nature. The rewards of right action can 



LIBERTY. 197 

be brought in comparison with the appetites and pas- 
sions to no common scale of pleasures, and graded 
thereon as greater or less. Duty frequently fails to 
present itself as pleasurable, and yet remains in its 
full force, and the pleasure which is to follow from 
obedience is not the very motive of obedience. Any 
weighing of obligation, with enjoyments, of moral sat- 
isfaction with appetitive indulgence, can only reveal 
the disparity of, the unlikeness of, the two, and leave 
us still constrained to choose between them. Here, 
then, in this essential diversity of motives, which 
come in, on the one side from the physical, and on 
the other from the spiritual, world, we find ground 
and occasion for liberty, for a spontaneity that may 
go forth either way ; that may strike downward or 
upward in radical or plumule as it pleases. The 
grounds, both for the direction and" the degree of the 
activity are found in itself. In these two facts, there- 
fore, that motives have no efficient force, and that 
there is a real, not an apparent, diversity among 
them, we find the conditions, first of spontaneity, 
second of liberty. 

Again, we argue freedom from the inadequate state- 
ment of the facts, to which the doctrine of necessity 
leads. There is no more decisive proof against a 
theory, than that it tends to a disguisement and per- 
version of the facts ; that it puts in circulation a clip- 
ped and fradulent currency. Of this we can give but 
a single illustration. Both Bain and Mill make the 
notion of responsibility commensurate with, perfectly 
equivalent to, the notion of punishability. Says Mill, 
" Responsibility means punishment," and punishment 



I98 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

he regards as just because it stands in the relation of 
a means to an end ; exactly as whipping a horse is 
allowable, if it is really a condition of safety, and 
advantage to those who drive him. To establish my 
assertion that the necessitarian perverts moral facts 
in their statement, two things are in this example 
necessary : first, to show, that, with him, responsi- 
bility and punishability are equivalent ; second, that 
they are not so equivalent. If the motive controls 
the mind, reasons the necessitarian, then the mind 
can, under given motives, do no otherwise than it 
does do. Yet it is right to punish the person who 
does wrong, because the punishment itself becomes 
a motive, alters the relation of motives, restores the 
moral equilibrium of action, and protects both the 
man and society from the wrong bias which had 
seized him. Hence, responsibility and punishability 
mean the same thing, since in saying that the man 
is responsible, we only mean to say, that it would 
be right to punish him ; in no other sense is he re- 
sponsible. Is not the second point now also plain, 
that this use of the words, responsible, responsibil- 
ity, emasculates them, causes them to fall like light- 
ning from heaven ? When we say that a man is 
responsible, we mean to affirm a profound moral 
truth, and may not have in the mind's eye any notion 
of punishment whatever. Moreover, the nature of 
punishment itself is greatly modified by this view. 
We are willing to accept the theory, that punish- 
ment is inflicted solely for the discipline of the per- 
son and the protection of the community, but this 
does not alter the fact, that it has a fitness, an emo- 



LIBERTY. I99 

tional basis in the guilt of the party who has called 
it forth. We may confine a lunatic, but the trans- 
action has a moral character totally different from 
that of the imprisonment of a murderer. With Mill, 
punishment and responsibility both sink down to 
a purely animal basis. A beast is punishable and 
responsible in the same sense that man is, since, like 
man, it can be restrained by judiciously inflicted pain, 
and may be dangerous without it. When logical 
thinkers, like Bain and Mill, exhaust the moral world 
of all significancy, so banish from it its own pecu- 
liar aroma, and leave it in the statement, the ex- 
hausted refuse of itself, waste- matter whose essence 
has all been distilled and pressed away, we may well 
distrust the correctness of their initial idea. Ethical 
phenomena are often treated with the same wisdom 
of method as would belong to a chemist, if he should 
first drive off a volatile gas by heat, and then deny 
its existence, because the residuum did not disclose 
it. The subtle substance of morals is made to effer- 
vesce in the heat of analysis, and the coarse remainder 
of action is then easily explained by ordinary motives. 
We cannot leave this notion of liberty, resting on 
the foundations now laid for it, without answering 
the most urgent and pregnant of the objections which 
have been brought against it. Physicists have, in 
turn, battered it and passed it by in scorn ; and the 
stones they now cast, they fling in the spirit of the 
Israelites of old, who, in the same act, made a tomb 
and built a monument for their victim. The first of 
these objections comes out of the very heart of science. 
It is her bitter rejection of that which she can make 



200 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

nothing of. The objection is this : liberty is equiva- 
lent to fortuity ; a free action is one without a cause, 
and, therefore, without ground and government. 
Science eschews nothing so much as that which is 
not amenable to causes, since the physical province 
is her kingdom, and causes are her subjects. All 
that escapes a fixed law, emancipates itself from her 
control, and sets up a rival, not to say a hostile and 
disturbing, authority. The answer to this objection 
is simple : the mind is indeed not a cause, nor is 
the motive a cause, nor is the choice an effect. All 
the phenomena within the mental field are sponta- 
neous, and causation does not take part in the trans- 
action till a definite physical force is somewhere real- 
ized through the intervention of our physical struct- 
ure. It does not hence follow, that all is accident 
and chance, because it is not fixed and fastened by 
force. The mind is, though a spontaneous power, a 
rational power ; and though the conclusion of a proof 
does not make the premises, nor the premises cause 
the conclusion, they are nevertheless interlocked in 
an orderly, sufficient way. Motives are grounds and 
occasions of action without being its causes ; and the 
mind is not fortuitous in its pursuit, because that pur- 
suit is an expenditure of its own power. It is not 
an accidental arrangement under which certain things 
call forth desire, and others do not. Neither is it 
the result of fortuity, that the volition is confined to 
two lines of action ; nor yet of chance, but of choice, 
that the mind accepts one in preference to the other. 
Indeed, here is the gist of the matter. Can there be 
action which is not conditioned by that which is out of 



LIBERTY. 201 

itself, nor controlled by conditions previously placed 
within itself, that is not fortuitous action ? We an- 
swer, Yes. For if not, creation is impossible, since 
creation is not a transfer and change of force, but a 
bringing of force, conditions and all into being. God 
is not conditioned from without, neither from within 
by any prior action other than his own, but he does 
give an orderly, rational origin to force. The human 
mind, therefore, may do the same thing, so far as for- 
tuity is concerned, and its activity need not be causal 
in order to be consequential and rational. 

There must be a limit to the conditioned somewhere, 
beyond which it passes into the free, the spontaneous, 
the unconditioned. Either the universe as a whole 
is conditioned from within, self-conditioned, or con- 
ditioned from without. If from without, then we do 
reach personal, spontaneous, power ; if from within, 
then we assign to matter as a whole what we have 
refused to concede to mind, and make it a self-condi- 
tioned existence. This is more than once, the spu- 
rious result of philosophy. What it has refused to 
grant to mind as incredible, it, at length, allows to 
matter ; in the face of experience, freely conceding to 
the weaker what it could not find, and would not 
endure in the stronger. Thus it is deemed more 
rational that matter should condition itself from all 
eternity, than that it should be conditioned by God ; 
that order, thought, complex and complete relations 
should flow forth from a material source, than that 
they should be referred to a spiritual one. What is 
this but denying spirituality to mind to restore it 
again as a quality in matter ? 



202 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

A second allied objection is, that liberty gives no 
weight to motives. This we allow, if by weight is 
meant an efficient force by which they act on the 
mind. The mind moves toward them, springs up in 
power in reference to them, but can, on grounds 
given, reasons rendered, increase or withhold that 
power, an unconditioned power as regards the circle 
of circumstances under which it arises. The entire 
vocabulary of the necessitarian is at fault. It is fig- 
urative language which he insists in employing in a 
literal sense. He speaks of motives as greater or 
less, implying different degrees of efficiency in them-i 
whereas, the whole idea of force, in connection with 
inducements to action, is a transferred one, comes 
from the physical world, and cannot be carried over 
to mind with definite estimates, with weights and 
measures, with a registration of intensities. All 
that can be understood in this connection by the 
words greater and less, is the varying power of the 
mind's spontaneous activity toward the motives ; and 
if there is no other way of measuring motives, as 
greater and less, than this of the mind's response to 
them, then we reason in a circuit, when we say, that 
the mind always obeys the strongest motive, having 
no ground to call it the strongest except the mere 
fact that the mind does yield to it. The statement 
of the necessitarian would be, the motive, the ex- 
ternal object, occasions, causes, a certain play of feel- 
ing, this feeling, according to its degree, occasions, 
causes a certain volition, and the volition is thus 
conditioned to the motive. Our first answer is, the 
motive has no power over the feeling, but the feeling 



LIBERTY. 203 

is spontaneous under the motive, hence this is not 
a connection of necessity ; and further, that the con- 
nection between the feeling and volition is also a 
spontaneous one, and, if there are two or more direc- 
tions of action, the mind is conditioned to no one of 
them, and is free to a choice between them. A sec-*- 
ond answer is, the necessitarian has no way of meas- 
uring motives unlike in kind except through the 
feelings called forth, and as these feelings are also 
unlike, no method except the fact of a resultant vol- 
ition. But to affirm, in one breath, that the will is 
governed by the strongest motive, and in the next 
that that motive is the strongest which governs the 
will, is to reason in a circle. " Nay," says Mr. Mill. 
" If there were no test of the strength of motives but 
their effect on the will, the proposition, that the will 
follows the strongest motive, is not identical, and un- 
meaning. We say, without absurdity, that if two 
weights are placed in opposite scales, the heavier 
will lift the other up ; yet we mean nothing by the 
heavier, except the weight that will lift up the other." 
Hold here. Mr. Mill has hit on the best possible 
comparison for his purpose, and -if it is applicable, we 
concede him his ground. In the first place, we deny 
the statement, that we have no other measure of 
weight than this one form of experiment affords. 
Each weight may be used in a system of pullies, or 
with a coiled spring, and show in both the same 
grade of force ; more satisfactorily, each exhibits the 
inertia and the momentum due to their respective 
weights, and this is an independent measure of the 
amount of matter in them. Fling into one pan of 



204 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

the scales, the tack-hammer, and the sledge-hammer 
into the other ; now take them out and strike with 
them, and you have an independent confirmation of 
the first conclusion. The one has more matter than 
the other ; this it reveals in its momentum. 

In the second place, we deny the existence of suffi- 
cient resemblance in the two cases. Each weight is 
known beyond all doubt, and every material circum- 
stance concerning it is known ; our antecedents and 
consequents are thus fixed, and the same movement 
always follows the presence of the weights. In the 
case of any volition, and still more in the majority of 
volitions, we fail to know perfectly that which makes 
up motive ; and the action which follows often varies, 
and is not unfrequently entirely changed. Suppose 
our two weights, the same to the eye, should alter 
from day to day under comparison, and that this state 
of things, as regards the weight of all bodies, should 
repeat itself with unending irregularity, and it should 
then be affirmed and assumed that the heavier body 
always did bring down the scale, and that the varia- 
bility was due to some subtle evaporations or absorp- 
tions of substances of which we seemed to get a 
glimpse, but had no sufficient measurement, how 
would the proof for the assertion then stand ? Evi- 
dently, it would have disappeared. Now this is the 
case with motives. Motives that seem to be the 
same are inferred to be different, if the action varies ; 
and those that seem unlike, are regarded as like, if 
the action is the same. That is, our motives are not, 
like weights, distinct and undeniable : but we regard 
them now in this light, now in that, according to the 



LIBERTY. 205 

conduct that follows them. Again, if we knew of two 
weights, only the single fact, that when placed in the 
scales one predominates, that is all that we should be 
at liberty to affirm, and could not add, there is more 
efficiency or force in this than in that, till by further 
and varied experiments, we had determined this re- 
sult to be due to efficiency or force. The less weight 
may, in some situations, raise the greater ; that a 
scale-pan is not one of them, is to be shown by varied 
as well as by repeated trials. Evidently, if liberty 
did exist, the will must still follow some motive, and 
if this motive was shown by that mere fact to be the 
stronger motive, we should then reach the absurd 
conclusion, that liberty, in its exercise, proves itself, 
must prove itself, to be necessity : that is, a manifes- 
tation, hence a proof, of liberty is impossible. This 
entire notion of the influence and force of motives 
comes from causation, is impertinent to the depart- 
ment of mind, and has no other ground or reason 
than the obstinacy with which we transfer the facts 
of one field by analogy to another. Liberty has the 
same independent basis in the mind as causation, 
and though the latter notion, now so assiduously de- 
veloped in science, is constantly finding its way into 
philosophy, it is just as much an intrusion and mis- 
take there, as was formerly the notion of spontaneity, 
when brought from mind to matter to the detriment 
and oversight of its fixed laws. This subtle intrusion 
of causation is the ever-returning occasion of diffi- 
culty. Says Hamilton, " It is of no consequence in 
the argument, whether motives be said to determine 
a man to act, or to influence (that is to determine) 



206 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

him to determine himself to act." Mill, in admira- 
tion, exclaims, " This is one of the neatest specimens 
in our author's writings of a fallacy cut clean through 
by a single stroke." But the whole force of the 
thrust is dependent on the substitution of the word 
determine for the word influence. If to say a motive 
influences, and a motive determines, an act are not 
equivalent, the boasted blow is a mere flourish in the 
air. Now, to influence and to determine are equiva- 
lent only on the grounds of causation, of a like effi- 
ciency of force covered by the two words. It was 
only because of this physical meaning which adhered 
to the word influence in the minds of Hamilton and 
Mill, that they were able, with such craft and glee, to 
creep through it into that second word, determine, 
and, by thus evading the outworks of liberty, steal 
into its citadel and strike down the flag. Do the 
motives determine the mind's action ? remains, under 
this double phraseology, as before, the entire ques- 
tion. 

A last objection to the doctrine of liberty comes 
from another quarter. It is that it interferes with 
the foreknowledge of God. We suppose liberty does 
contemplate more power in man than would necessity, 
and, therefore, that it calls for more skill in his Ruler. 
When a choice is given, a veritable choice between 
two actions, doubtless, both contingencies must be 
contemplated and prepared for, and if God is not 
able to do this, it is certainly unsafe for him to allow 
liberty. But who is prepared to say that God is so 
impotent, that he is compelled, while mocking man 
with an appearance of freedom, to shove him along 



LIBERTY. 207 

a line of pre-determined action ? Not we, certainly. 
Whatever the liabilities and demands of liberty, these 
we believe God is able to meet. Liberty implies two 
lines of conduct honestly open to man. God can 
meet him, and control him in either. It is by no 
means a matter of chance which he will pursue ; it is 
only not a thing of necessity. The difference in 
results which depend on freedom as compared with 
those which spring from causation, is like that which 
exists between demonstrative and moral proof. The 
one is fixed, absolute in its conclusions ; the other 
probable. Yet we even deal with both equally well. 
Most of our actions, our calculations, depend on 
moral evidence, evidence that admits a doubt, yet 
we prosper. Much more, then, shall the Kingdom 
of God thrive in his hand. It is not necessary that 
he should break in on liberty, nor that we should 
conceive it under the form of a conditional, physical 
cause, in order to make way for his counsels and his 
control. He created it, he contemplates it, and gives 
it the margin its activities require. His " thus far 
and no farther," is as effective against spiritual power 
as against physical force. What is capable of being 
known, he knows. What is not a matter of knowl- 
edge, omniscience does not suffice to make such, nor 
is it dishonored by the failure. The glory of God is 
found in his giving and handling liberty ; not in his 
pressing his own purpose through and over all, flood- 
ing the spiritual universe, as he does the physical, 
with his personal force. His honor is^that he floats 
upon and above this ocean of forces^ spiritual king- 
dom, spirits innumerable ; not that he submerges 



203 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

them all till they become mere fish of the sea, or 
drowns them all in it, dead men, bringing to the 
surface, for his sunlight, faces stark and ghastly. 
Let these spirits remain spirits, that God may foster 
them and love them, and rule in them and surround 
his throne with them, as the only adequate utterance 
of his own invisible life. 



LECTURE IX. 

LIFE ; ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN. THE MIND. 

We have now considered those ideas which give 
character to the intellectual field, and distinguish it 
from every other. The first of them is conscious- 
ness, assigning the boundaries of the department ; 
the second are right and liberty, giving its laws. 
With these, beauty also is present, the central idea 
of the department of taste, and a product solely of 
emotional thought. There is yet another idea, which, 
for the sake of completeness, we should mention, 
though we do not propose to dwell upon it. Resem- 
blance, applicable to mental as to physical phenomena, 
performs, in addition to the aid rendered by it in 
the classification of our intellectual activities, a very 
peculiar and important part in the processes of 
thought. The agreement of our conceptions, our 
judgments with that to which they pertain, is what 
we term truth, and the growth of our knowledge re- 
quires of us a careful and constant observance of this 
connection of the fact as present to the mind, with the 
exterior fact of which it is the symbol. Every step, 
therefore, of inquiry proceeds under the idea of re- 
semblance in the phase of it known as truth ; and 
thus the trio which preside over thought are fre- 
quently given as the good, the beautiful, and the true. 
The good is the very substance of rational action ; the 
beautiful is the perfection of its form ; and the true 



2IO SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

is the exactness of its equivalence, of its correspond- 
ence, to things as they are. The right still yields 
the law ; through inquiry, through truth, that law is 
grounded in facts ; and by taste, by beauty, action 
under it is made symmetrical and complete. 

Liberty, as we have said, rests back on, includes 
as its central feature, spontaneity, and spontaneity is 
the condition of all that is true, that is. beautiful, and 
that is good. Our intellectual conceptions cannot be 
shaped to facts, but must lie as they chance, parallel 
or athwart, unless the mind can at pleasure shape 
and re-shape them, till the exactness of agreement is 
secured. Our sesthetical productions above all need 
to show the easy, free, cheerful, unconstrained way 
in which they have sprung up ; while virtue is chosen 
conformity to the law of our moral life, which, by the 
adoption of every other law, becomes the law of our 
entire life ; and perfect virtue is the instantaneous 
and spontaneous response of the mind to every holy 
impulse. Spontaneity, then, is the seat of our spir- 
itual power, and virtue the form of its perfect mani- 
festation ; while beauty remains the grace of that 
form, and truth its harmony in a universe of kin- 
dred being. 

We now pass from the field and law of mental life 
to its nature and source. Mental life ; the words 
imply that the mind presents a form or phase of life ; 
and that life is the germinant, generic idea of the 
spiritual world. Spencer gives this definition of life : 
" The continuous adjustment of internal relations to 
external relations." It has much merit, but seems to 
us to share the general deficiency of his philosophy, 



life; its nature and ORIGIN. THE MIND. 211 

and to be rather a statement of a portion of that 
which life does than an exposition of the life-power 
itself, the source of all vital phenomena. A defini- 
tion should contain an inclusive statement of that 
which is to be attributed to life, and also a reference 
of these results to it as their source. We only know 
life by what it does ; yet what it does is not life, but 
the product of life. Life is measured by the sum of all 
that it accomplishes, and this sum is the complete, 
phenomenal expression of that power. Such a state- 
ment, however, is necessarily of the most general 
character, since life is not so much life as " lives," is 
not so much one force as a great class of forces, each 
working results peculiar to itself. The lichen and 
man have little in common, and that definition of life 
which is not too broad for the one nor too narrow for 
the other, can only include the most generic features. 
Appropriating the labors of Spencer, we would say, 
that life is that power which establishes a circle of 
internal relations, and maintains them in constant 
adjustment with external relations. The entire no- 
tion of power now present in the definition is there by 
our insertion, and it has two offices : first, the build- 
ing up of an organic product ; and second, the main- 
tenance of it. The parts of an organic being are 
strictly parts, play into each other, are dependent on 
each other, and together constitute a whole. The 
rank of life is shown by the complexity and complete- 
ness of this dependence, by the entire separation of 
the living being from every other, and by the varied 
ministrations within itself to its own happiness and 
power. Thus man is looked upon as a microcosm in 



212 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

the marvellous multiplicity of dependencies and deli- 
cacy of attachments in his complex, physical and spir- 
itual structure, in the innumerable things he is able 
to do, and able to suffer. To set up such a circle of 
relations, to build such an organic structure, and to 
maintain it in instant, perfect adjustment to a thou- 
sand variable outer agencies, is the highest known 
labor of life. From such a product as this, life sinks 
downward, till, in the amoeba, composed chiefly of 
protoplasm, and possessed of no permanent organs, 
it scarcely shows a trace of that power which in man 
overwhelms us with astonishment. Yet, even here, 
as life it works like life, and extemporizes organs 
which subserve their purpose, and disappear again in 
the speck of jelly from which they spring. Having 
no limbs, it establishes a limb at any point ; having 
no stomach, it starts digestion wherever it can secure 
contact ; and thus, without fixed relations, it renews 
fluctuating ones as suits the exigency. The word 
life, therefore, presents an instance of one of those 
sweeping generalizations, by which a single point of 
agreement is made to cover great variety of details, 
and we conveniently speak of one power, where a 
great diversity of allied powers is under consideration. 

There are three questions which are asked and 
variously answered concerning life: Why postulate 
a vital force, a life-power at all ? Whence is the 
source of life, what has been the origin of vegetable 
and animal life on the globe, and of the various forms 
they have assumed ? And, if a life-power be con- 
ceded, what is its nature and its method of action ? 

The first of these questions, Is there a distinct life- 



LIFE ; ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN. THE MIND. 213 

power ? has been recently answered by a few physi- 
cists in the negative. An obvious, preliminary objec- 
tion to this opinion is, that it has arisen, not under the 
impressions of the most palpable manifestations of 
this power, not in view of the highest animal life, nor 
indeed of the great mass of life, animal and vegetable, 
but has been the result of an inquiry into life in its 
most obscure and undeclared forms. It certainly 
weakens any argument, that it gathers its data from 
dark, marginal facts, and goes directly against those 
conclusions that spring naturally from plain, massive, 
central phenomena. A tendency to reduce facts to a 
minimum visibile, and to draw one's inferences from 
the last point reached, is always unsafe. A class of 
experiments which has been one scource of this con- 
viction are those which pertain to the spontaneous 
generation of life. It has been doubted, whether life 
in all instances springs from a previous, living germ ; 
whether it is not sometimes found where no germ 
could have been present. This is a question of fact, 
which may, perhaps, be said to remain unsettled. As, 
however, the broadest of inductions has established 
the law of the dependence of life on germs, only the 
most undeniable proof can be allowed to overthrow 
it. All doubt and uncertainty accrue in favor of a 
law which has such various and unmistakable grounds 
of proof back of it. Yet, granting the spontaneous 
origin of life in one or more forms, the argument for 
its independent, original character is not thereby in- 
validated. This does not rest on the theory of germs, 
but on the fact of peculiar phenomena, demanding for 
their interpretation a peculiar power. If such phe- 



214 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

nomena are present, the law of causation demands 
for new effects new powers. If elephants were found 
suddenly to appear after certain sand-storms on Afri- 
can plains, this fact would not show the indentity of 
the wind and dust elements with the life-power. It 
would rather show the disguised way in which a 
supernatural force had found admission among natural 
ones. Infusoria, appearing in a given solution, are 
as much a new product as would be our elephants. 
Physicists may explain their presence as they please ; 
we trust, however, that they will not be so unphilo- 
sophical as to overlook that which is new in the results, 
because it is very small. The whole argument turns 
on minutiae, is poised on microscopic points. If the 
difference between an infusorium and a dead atom 
is too little to indicate a new power, then it is too lit- 
tle to establish the presence of life, too little to be 
made the grounds of an argument against life. By 
as much as the infusion with the infusoria is more 
than the infusion without them, by so much is there 
proof, and sufficient proof, of the presence of a new 
power. 

A second line of argument has been recently pre- 
sented by Huxley. It is this : " Protoplasm, a com- 
plex body, exhibits the phenomena of life. This 
protoplasm is devoid of structure, that is to say of 
any structure except the molecular structure pos- 
sessed by all colloid matter. It contains neither cells 
nor nuclei." Protoplasm is the food both of plants 
and animals, with this difference, " that plants can 
manufacture fresh protoplasm of mineral compounds, 
whereas animals are obliged to procure it ready made, 






LIFE j ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN. THE MIND. '215 

and hence, in the long run, depend upon plants." 
This discovery of vital power in connection with 
protoplasm, ranking with the highest inorganic rathei 
that with the lowest organic compounds, has been 
thought to have great significance, disconnecting life <: -r.^^-^ 
from the cell, hitherto its last refuge, and exhibiting 
it at work in matter not yet definitely arranged or 
organized by it. The conclusion of Prof. Huxley, and 
of others, in regard to protoplasm, is this : " Its ex- 
istence proves life to be a molecular property, and 
shows that organization is the product of life, not life 
the product of organization." He regards the notion 
of vital force as a wholly gratuitous assumption, as 
much so as would be an explanation of the various 
properties of water by the idea of " aquosity." " We 
do not hesitate to believe," he says, "that the many 
strange phenomena, the properties of water, result 
from the properties of the component elements of 
water. What better philosophical status has ' vitality' 
than ' aquosity ? ' And why should ' vitality ' hope 
for a better fate than other ' itys ' which have disap- 
peared since Martinus Scriblerus accounted for the 
operation of a meat-jack by its inherent, ' meat-roast- • 
ing qualities/ and scorned the ' materialism ' of those 
who explained the turning of the spit by a certain 
mechanism worked by the draught of the chimney ? " 
We should wish no better example than the above 
of the hasty generalizations with which physicists 
are ready to precipitate themselves into a half open 
opportunity to traverse the ordinary and more spirit- 
ual view. Even the data for a specious conclusion 
against an independent, vital principle are wanting. 



'2 I 6 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

The professor should at least have shown that proto- 
plasm is a chemical compound that can be realized at 
will, and that when secured it exhibits at once, neces- 
sarily, uniformly, the entire circle of vital appearances. 
This is the case with water and its properties, and thus 
a limited circle of definite powers calls for no other 
explanation than the fixed nature of the elements con- 
cerned, their molecular structure. When, however, 
and we draw attention to the fact, we find water as- 
suming in snowflakes, on the window-pane, and on the 
bars that begin to mterlace the pool by the way-side, 
striking, variable, peculiar forms, we explain them by 
a new force — that of crystallization, as we do the 
spheres it forms in dropping from the finger-end by 
the idea of attraction. Huxley, far from laying this 
foundation for his argument, speaks of " dead pro- 
toplasm," that is, protoplasm without these living 
properties. The language is as unfortunate for his 
reasoning as if he had been compelled to admit the 
existence of water without the qualities of water. 
Then, indeed, should we be forced to refer these 
qualities, on their manifestation, to some new force, 
which we might more fitly than euphoniously term 
" aquosity." If Huxley had been able to show, which 
he has not shown, that all protoplasm exhibits a con- 
stant series of vital phenomena, how far off would he 
still have been from accounting for the ten thousand 
separate and fixed forms which life assumes ; how 
little would he have been at liberty to refer these, so 
new, so diverse, so striking facts, to the molecular 
action of the elements of protoplasm ! All the bur- 
den which these data of proof could honestly bear 



LIFE J ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN. THE MIND. 21/ 

would be those facts which they strictly cover, to 
wit : the circulations, contractions, prolongations of 
protoplasm. Till this wonderful protoplasm can, on 
certain fixed, physical conditions, be shown to run 
through by rote all the phenomena which belong to 
all forms of life, as water stands ready to assume its 
Protean shapes, from ice to steam, with perfect regu- 
larity on fitting suggestion, the proof of the equiva- 
lence of its molecular forces to the power of life is 
not complete, and " vitality " still rests on different 
ground from that of the " itys " which have gone 
before it. Even the first step in this proof has ad- 
mittedly failed, and protoplasm is sometimes living 
protoplasm and sometimes dead protoplasm. Will 
Mr. Huxley be so kind as to tell us the difference 
between the two ? 

What is it that vital power or the " lives " are in- 
voked to explain ? Those most varied, those most 
wonderful, combinations of parts and functions in the 
organic products of the vegetable and animal king- 
dom. We are content to accept the assertion, that 
no vital result is reached without the expenditure of 
chemical, thermal, mechanical forces, without the 
mediation of those molecular forces which inhere in 
the several elements handled by life. The proof of 
this is by no means complete, but it is sufficient to 
render the conclusion exceedingly probable. Says 
Wm. Odling, in his Lectures before the Royal College 
of Physicians : " Chemists and physicists are well 
assured that be life what it may, it is not a generator, 
but only a transformer of external force." (p. 108.) 
Certain it is that every known, physical change 
10 



2l8 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

assumes the form of a chemical, thermal, mechanical 
one, is a change in molecules or in masses exactly 
allied to changes that take place elsewhere. No 
process, new in kind, new in its ultimate constituents 
is found within an organic body, when this process 
is compared with those which take place without the 
body. In this respect the organic product is like the 
laboratory of the chemist. Much happens there 
which is not in form occuring elsewhere ; but it hap- 
pens under molecular actions identical with those in 
the world at large. Nor do we well see how it could 
be otherwise. A living creature is not made, as a 
building is erected, out of masses whose internal 
structure remains intact. Their structure is broken 
down, and new compounds are realized by a new al- 
lotment and union of elements. This is a chemical 
process ; these are exactly the results that we term 
chemical ; and either the vital principle must create 
something absolutely new, or the various organs and 
members of its respective structures must arise un- 
der the re-organized, molecular, that is chemical, action 
of their constituents. We do not expect an architect 
to make his stones, his brick, his timber. The vital 
architect, working within a more interior circle, that 
of molecular forces, does not make these, but employs 
■them, and therefore all its processes have the appear- 
ance and form of chemical facts. What life is evoked 
to explain is not these, taken separately, but collec- 
tively : not these in what they are in themselves, but 
in the relations which give rise to them, and in the 
results to which they tend. We demand life for the 
same reason that we demand a chemist in the labo- 



life; its nature and origin. — the mind. 219 

ratory ; not because of what takes place in the retort, 
but because of the retort itself ; not for the chemical 
actions and reactions of the experiment, but for the 
very experiment, its existence as a present fact, and 
its presentation to us. We require an architect not 
to account for the stones and mortar, but for their 
relations to each other. We may understand the 
transfer of a telegram through the workings of a tele- 
graph, the circuit of chemical, electric and mechanical 
changes therein, but the message itself we understand 
only through the existence of a distant friend, his 
character and purposes. Now if the vital power 
were a force lodged in these or those molecules, and 
could by some possibility show itself as a distinct 
force, and not in the discovery seem to be one of the 
recognized forms of physical force, we see not how it 
could do the work we have for it. We have enough 
physical forces ; what is wanted in-an organic product 
like the human body is something to use them, to 
separate them, compound them, and set them at ser- 
vices reciprocal and complete. There is material 
enough, and variety enough in it ; we are waiting to 
see it combined, its forces included and harmonized 
in a system of ends. This supreme mystery in every 
living thing, this variable and wonderful power, whose 
products are our perpetual astonishment, every pea- 
etrative mind is more or less conscious of. Thus 
Odling proceeds to say : " I believe, however, that 
chemists appreciate to the fullest extent what may 
be termed the mystery of life." Dr. Bushnel thus 
gathers up before the wheels of his ardent rhetoric 
the chemical explanations of life as the small dust of 



220 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

the street, and makes of them the clouds that signal- 
ize without retarding his progress : " I hardly know 
how to speak with due respect of a theory that makes 
a very little, almost tiny, amount of science go so far, 
and solve a problem of such wonderful complexity. 
Take a human body, fibered, vasculated, innerved, 
articulated, digesting, secreting, absorbing, breath- 
ing, circulating, carrying on even thousands of dis- 
tinct operations, at hundreds of thousands of distinct 
points, all necessary to each other, so that when 
some tiny process, never perceived by man, slips its 
duty, and the proportionate working is but a little 
changed, the equilibrium called health is overset — 
conceive all this, then conceive that this multifarious 
world of operative powers plays on, still on, asleep 
and awake, for sixty or a hundred years, mastering 
heat, and cold, and breakage, in a thousand forms ; 
whereupon the chemist, who has gotten hold of a few 
simple laws of inorganic matter, tells you that he can 
solve it ; that we take in food, and the food put in 
the structure, as a machine, makes force and carries 
on the play, and replaces the waste, and so that the 
machine keeps everything, even the machine itself, 
in order, proportion, and prolonged operation ! The 
body is, in this view, nothing but a laboratory, gotten 
up with just so many parts as there are functions, 
and they all play together, making it a body. Carry 
out the figure, now, and see what is in it. The 
chemist has a laboratory full of vials, bottles, acids, 
alkalies, all manner of simples, and all manner of 
salts, with combustibles, and fires, and galvanic bat- 
teries, and force-pumps, and gasometers, in short, a 



life; its nature and ORIGIN. THE MIND. 221 

little universe of chemical substances and machineries. 
Now this doctrine of the body is just as if, connecting 
all these vessels, and substances, into a chemical 
circle, by pipes, and pumps, and sponges, and wire- 
conductors, and going to his digester, he were to put 
in three times a day a loaf of bread, which has in it 
such a wonderful wise-acting set of forces, that, pas- 
sing into the grand circuit of the laboratory, he im- 
agines it to keep all the parts in play and sound con- 
dition — the vials just as full as they were, and of the 
same substance ; the galvanic batteries, eaten up by 
the acids, still sound and good as before ; the combus- 
tible, going off in gases, replaced by new combustibles ; 
the ices, dissolved, replaced by freezing, and the vapors 
thrown off, by condensing ; and even the iron digester 
itself renewed in the wear, by the nourishing force 
of the bread that is dissolved in it. What a magnifi- 
cently preposterous solution is this to be offered in 
the name of science ! And yet the same kind of 
solution, put upon the body with such easy compla- 
cency, is at least a hundred times more preposterous 
as the body-laboratory is at least a hundred times 
more complex." A power, then, which does a work 
so wholly -beyond purely physical forces, so directly 
opposed to what these, when left to themselves, can 
accomplish, death itself being nothing other than 
their unguided action, as the shattered vehicle is the 
sequence of the runaway horse, is not a physical 
force, but something wholly transcending it. 

Our next inquiry pertains to the method of the in- 
troduction of life. The forms of life are so distinct, 
and so manifestly of comparatively recent origin, 



222 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

that they have furnished a strong argument for those 
who have wished to mark the exact historical periods 
at which creative power has appeared. A theory has 
been brought forward, which physicists have eagerly 
seized upon to rid themselves of these points of at- 
tachment of a supernatural agency. This theory is 
more often known as that of Darwin. It is so famil- 
iar, that I may pre-suppose a knowledge of it. It so 
divides and subdivides the spaces that lie between 
the several kinds of life as easily to pass them in 
detail, and climb by a consecutive series from the 
lowest to the highest. It comes in to complement 
the theory of protoplasm, and, though not believing 
in germs, to work up the merest germ of power into 
a universe. Not only is this theory of Darwin not 
established, it is, by the admission of its friends, inca- 
pable of present proof. Indeed, this is one of their 
strong arguments, that as it is from the nature of the 
case impossible to secure the data requisite for its con- 
firmation, they should be excused from the labor ; 
while the presumption they are able to raise in its favor 
should have full force. They not only ingeniously 
excuse themselves from its establishment, they wish 
their inability to be accepted as a make-weight in 
place of proof, to open the way for easy acceptance. 
The impossibility and the argument run thus : A 
large part, by far the larger part, of the record of the 
life of the globe is either obliterated or beyond our 
reach ; as therefore the annals of life show great rents, 
large omissions, so ought the forms of life, the inter- 
mediate links being swept into oblivion. This fact, so 
plain and inevitable, should not weaken the argument 



LIFE ; ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN. THE MIND. 223 

afforded by those positive and close relations of certain 
portions of life, suggesting, as they do, a like depen- 
dence everywhere. Treat the proof of. this theory 
in the most considerate way, and still, in view of all 
the difficulties, it remains weak. It rests by far too 
much on our ignorance ; this can give it no positive 
support. Moreover, though the geological record is 
very incomplete, the facts it does give are scattered 
widely up and down the entire field, and should serve 
as fair types of the remaining facts. Our actual 
knowledge is not, therefore, proportioned in its extent 
to the relation which the discovered facts bear to the 
undiscovered ones, but is much greater than this ratio 
would indicate. A single known fact may stand as the 
representative of innumerable unknown ones. We 
are not thus at liberty to insist to the full on the great 
loss of geological data. We know the history of our 
own race in its leading features through a knowledge of 
a very few of the events that have actually transpired, 
and so may we that of the organic world. Looking 
upon our geological knowledge as a proximately fair 
presentation of the field, the spaces, the chasms be- 
tween the kinds of life are so many and so broad and 
so universal as greatly to weaken the force of the 
argument, resting on those instances in which they 
closely approach ; and the more so, as, on any theory, 
we are prepared to expect a frequent and intimate 
dependence of the forms of life, and even a genetic 
relation of many varieties. This failure to close up 
great gaps in the chain also occurs at points at which 
the material, if it existed, should be especially acces- 
sible, for instance, in the space between man and 



224 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

the beings below him. The facts, therefore, seem to 
suggest two methods rather than one in creation, 
an occasional close union of species, and a frequent 
broad separation of families. 

Again, the Darwinian theory requires to be supple- 
mented by many other suppositions favorable to it. 
Thus when Geology indicates that great inroads have 
been made upon life, sweeping a large part of it from 
the globe, some land of refuge must be provided, some 
ark launched in which it can hide, where progress 
may still be maintained, and where it may return, on 
occasion, to occupy the old region once more uplifted. 
Now this careful, prudent, shepherding of primitive 
life, and maintenance for it of many unbroken threads 
of development, is cumbersome, improbable, and 
purely hypothetical. It seems to have been handled 
in a very rough and destructive way. Moreover, some 
forms of it have certainly remained for incredible 
periods without material change. Life, then, must 
have early divided itself into permanent and flexible 
forms, and no uniform law of variability can be estab- 
lished or assumed. Thus we get back to accidental, 
hap-hazard results, as to the conditions and directions 
of change. The argument from embryology, much 
insisted on, seems to us peculiarly vague. If life has 
been introduced in this serial way, that fact does not 
render an obvious reason why successive stages of 
lower life should be found in every embryo of higher 
life. Must every portion of the history of its race be 
repeated in pantomime by each embryo ? If any 
part is thus to be rehearsed, why not the whole 
exactly ? In passing from the general, the indefinite, 



life; its nature and origin. — the mind. 225 

to the specific, the definite, would there not naturally 
be stages, faintly figuring the like stages which uni- 
versal life assumes in working out exactly the same 
problem ? The proof at this point lacks definite force. 
Our purpose now, however, is to show that our 
notion of the independent nature of life does not 
depend on the rejection or acceptance of this theory, 
but is equally sound on either supposition. The only 
question raised by it is, Whether life, as a fact, has been 
enlarged on the globe by slight increments in connec- 
tion with previous forms, or by decided, independent 
steps ? In whatever way we answer this inquiry, we 
may still believe in a super-physical, vital force. 
Suppose the growth of life, as a whole, to have been, 
as in each of its separate forms, by slight changes ; 
living centres creeping, like the fern, from point to 
point, taking up new positions in the plane of devel- 
opment, and, on the right and the left, establishing 
and maintaining distinct ground, different genera, 
classes and families. These increments, by which 
the life of to-day is more than that of yesterday, are 
still to be accounted for. They may be referred to 
outward circumstances. They have been so attrib- 
uted, till the manifest inadequacy of the causes has 
made the ascription ridiculous, and, as a general the- 
ory, untenable. Physicists will hardly strive again 
to show that water produces web feet, or air wings. 
* These changes, this variability, may be said to be ac- 
cidental ; while the preservation of that which is most 
apt in the several species may be referred to natural 
selection, to the very fact of higher adaptations, and 
the possession of more powers in the struggle for life. 



226 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

This feature of natural selection, Darwin has devel- 
oped in a most thorough, ingenious and instructive 
way, leaving no room to doubt its presence as an effi- 
cient cause or condition in the world. The other 
half, however, of this second explanation is every way 
awkward. It is pitiful, starting out with the action 
of law, universal and complete ; having reared, with 
much hullabaloo and clapping of hands, the flag of 
independent, self-sufficient, natural forces, to be com- 
pelled, in so important a case as this of life, to admit 
that its changes are subject to no order, are acci- 
dental. It might, perhaps, be as well to admit spirit- 
ual powers as accidents and fortuity. Chance is an 
ugly deity, and it is much like passing from Jehovah 
to Moloch to accept it. Further, if the life-forces are 
intrinsically variable, that is uncertain, that is acci- 
dental, through exactly how wide a circle are these 
accidents to run ? What sort of lapses and failures, 
what feats of agility and leaps of progress are they 
capable of? Accident in the realm of order is like 
disease in the body — one can hardly say how far it 
will spread. Where, moreover, in the geological 
world is the evidence of the innumerable slips and 
falls which the life-force must have sustained in thus 
mounting to its present position ? Accident has no 
law, and traces of every shade and form of failure 
should be met with. Even with natural selection at 
hand to save the good, it would take accidental vari- 
ability a long while to construct the organic world. 
Geological aeons would certainly not be periods too 
great in which to run the entire circuit of possible 
mistakes, and gather out and up all the marvellous 



LIFE ; ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN. THE MIND. 227 

beauties, aptitudes, coincidences of the life of to- 
day. 

If external circumstances cannot occasion serial 
development, if accidental, irregular modifications are 
not sufficient for this end, a third explanation alone 
remains, that the vital forces are themselves condi- 
tioned to orderly changes. This, the only tenable 
ground in connection with the theory of Darwin, 
makes of vital force the same inscrutable, indefinitely 
divisible and distinct, thing that we have spoken of as 
life-power, as the lives. It matters not that life has 
become what it is by short steps. Its character is 
decided, not by its length of stride, but by what at 
each point it is. The building is no less majestic 
because it has been in the hands of architects for 
generations. Lives to-day are no less numerous, 
distinct and wonderful, because they may have been 
at some previous time fewer and more closely con- 
nected. These steps of growth and distinction are 
not, because small, less observable, significant and 
supernatural. Every increment in the effect de- 
mands a like increment in the cause, aud these in- 
crements collectively constitute the organic world 
under discussion. We are not to powder down a 
granite mountain, wait for the wind to blow away the 
dust, and then say, this is nothing; we are not to 
divide and subdivide the spaces between the right 
and the left, the top and the bottom of this pyramid 
of life, and then say, These results are too small for 
consideration. We cannot drop them from our 
theory as unimportant factors, too insignificant to 
effect the result, and yet look to them as the sources 



228 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

and ground of the present organic creation. Give to 
us, gentlemen, all that belongs to us, do not overlook 
it because it is little, and we promise you, that, in- 
creasing ft at every step, enlarging it at every change, 
we will, coming up through the long lines of life, make 
of it that handsome capital of astonishing and super- 
natural power expressed in the manifold lives of to-day, 
that hide in ocean, creep or walk on land, or fly under 
the heavens. This tearing and teasing method, this 
plucking away the cable of truth fiber by fiber, not 
breaking it by one manly effort ; this reducton of 
argument to impalpable powder, and then sending 
one's breath through it as dust to be gotten rid of, is a 
form of ratiocination which calls for no great respect. 
The slightest increment of force demands a full and 
complete recognition, and the miracle of life is subdi- 
vided, not weakened or removed, by the reduction of it 
to many stages. A thousand mills as surely make a 
dollar as ten dimes, and .the theft of one of them, in 
the exact realm of philosophy, is palpable dishonesty, 
is the vulture's bill once more struck into the Prome- 
thean heart of truth. Grant us, therefore, in any 
theory of development, each step of progress in its 
true significance, as something beyond what we had 
before, as an additional force, either in existence or in 
manifestation, and we still have that mighty life- 
power, which has mounted the throne of the world, 
rules its mechanics and enemies, and gathers its 
retinue from darkness and from light, fleet of foot, 
swift of wing, and sharper than the winds in the 
keen insight of thought. 

The theory of development, seen in its true bear- 



LIFE ; ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN. THE MIND. 229 

ings, has powerful attractions for us. We are almost 
ready to regret that it so lacks proof as to remain 
only a guide to inquiry, to be used cautiously, and 
not as a sufficient explanation of facts. We see, 
however, no ground for the ridicule which Spencer 
is ready to bestow on the special-creation-hypothesis. 
Having amused his fancy with the image of wayward 
atoms and dispersed elements rushing in to a centre 
to take part in the formation of man or beast, he 
says of this, to him inconceivable, fact, a special and 
complete creation : " It is one of those cases where 
men do not really believe, but rather believe they 
believe. For belief, properly so called, implies a 
mental representation of the thing believed ; and no 
such mental representation is here possible." Can 
Spencer conceive, that is, form a complete and satis- 
factory image, of the explosion of ten pounds of gun- 
powder ? The black, palpable mass suddenly disap- 
pears, leaving a scent, a sound, a sight, fire and cloud, 
behind it. If he can, can he not as easily conceive 
of a like instantaneous return of the powder out of 
the gases, its elements ? and, if this be possible, is it 
any the less possible to conceive of the like sudden 
appearance of an angel, a man, an animal ? The fact 
is, he can form no complete image of the process in 
either case, and the explosion of the gunpowder has 
no other advantage over the instant creation of Adam 
than that of familiarity. One becomes weary of this 
talk of the conceivable and inconceivable, when every 
process that transpires within us and about us is in- 
conceivable in its last analysis, in all that lies beyond 
the eye. The development theory has no advantage 



230 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

over that of special creations in conceivability, except 
that it takes its food finer. It makes each new 
event smaller, and hides it away more perfectly. 
How a new variety is occasioned in fruits, in flowers, 
is inconceivable ; so is it, also, how an old one is 
maintained. Familiar and not familiar is all that can 
be meant by conceivable and inconceivable in this 
connection, and the argument resolves itself into, 
What is, has been, and always shall be. 

We come to our third inquiry, What is life ? We 
answer, a super-physical, a spiritual power, as opposed 
to a defined force with a material centre. Our rea- 
sons for this belief are various. Life performs a spirit- 
ual work, it constructs an organic being according to 
a definite plan. The plan, the relations, the minis- 
trations, are what this controlling efficiency is evoked 
to explain. Again, no physical, local, definite force 
can do this work, since it is a pervasive and variable 
one ; nor is any particular physical force called for, 
since these in sufficient numbers are present, and 
known as mechanical, chemical, nervous forces. Fur- 
ther, the life-power is one of maintenance and repair, 
one of resources, shifting its methods and grounds of 
action and resistance. It meets exigencies with new 
results, and thus shows itself flexible, variable, spon- 
taneous. Again, it is capable of indefinite increase, 
and thus is not amenable to the law of cause and 
effect. It is difficult to believe, that the entire oak 
is potentially in the acorn, that the egg contains the 
force of the completed' bird. The life-power seems 
rather to expand with its growing work, and to come, 
like the mind, to each new undertaking with new 



life; its nature and origin. — the mind. 231 

energies. A complex organism, like that of the ani- 
mal, can hardly lie crowded in the minutest germ, 
without making of that germ an unnecessary mystery. 
Or, conceding this, how is an acorn to hold ten thou- 
sand acorns equal to itself, nay, the ten times ten 
thousand which these may produce ? The equality 
of cause and effect finds no application here, and the 
smallest centre of life goes out to conquer, cover and 
dwell on a continent. 

This diffused existence and spirituality of the vital 
power is further confirmed by the results reached by 
those who refuse to accept it. Darwin and Spencer 
have both been forced back into theories, the one of 
gemmules, the other of physiological units, as incon- 
ceivable, as perplexing, as much beyond all possible 
physical proof, as any notion of the life-power can be. 
The gemmules of Darwin are most strangely endowed, 
most wonderfully prolific, infinitely minute, wholly 
supposititious, and left to perform an incredible work 
in an incredible way. This great materialist, turn- 
ing his back on life-power, ends prodigious labors 
with a conception as perplexing, obscure and super- 
physical — if experience is to be allowed to tell us 
what is and what is not physical— as that which he 
left in the outset, determined apparently never to 
return to it. While the physical side of a life-power 
is just as intelligible as are the facts under any 
theory, in its philosophical aspect, it commands re- 
spect and belief; it stands in sympathy with those 
other invisible forces which compose the spiritual 
world. That the lives — meaning thereby those sep- 
arate manifestations of a spiritual power that call 



232 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

forth and maintain distinct organic beings — stand in 
ranks or grades is evident. The lowest grade of this 
power is seen in the vegetable. Passing to the animal 
kingdom, we find a new and much more perfect de- 
pendence of parts secured in connection with a ner- 
vous system ; and, certainly in the higher animals, 
the introduction of a fresh element in sensations, 
feelings, recollections, the incipient phenomena of 
consciousness. Thus, life strikes down into the dark 
world of an unconscious, a purely physical, region, 
and later reaches up into consciousness, the first 
light of a spiritual realm. Life lies as a mid-way 
power between the physical and the purely spiritual. 
It acts only in connection with a physical organism, 
is conditioned to it, but nevertheless, it is able to 
take into its service, sensations, emotions, the first 
elements of the upper world. 

We would look upon the mind as something super- 
added to life, and far less dependent than it on phys- 
ical conditions. While life is restoring its powers by 
sleep, the mind remains active. Often in waking mo- 
ments it performs its most severe labor with closed 
senses, the busy shuttle of argument flying in the 
chambers of thought, while the submerged, forgotten, 
physical processes slowly proceed, like some heavy 
water-wheel plunging on in the darkness beneath. 
Life, in passing from the animal to man, carries its 
full quota of powers, and adds to them new points 
of contact with the spiritual world. The nervous 
mechanism has now no longer exclusive relation to 
an automatic government of the body, part acting 
upon part, the outside playing upon the inside through 



life; its nature and origin. — the mind. 233 

sensations and perceptions, the past upon the present 
by recollections ; but in the cerebrum, the highest 
chamber of consciousness, of rational counsel, is 
now found an adjustment that takes cognizance of 
the facts of a purely spiritual realm, and transfers 
thoughts, volitions, affections to the physical world, 
lets them down, in their influence, on matter. An 
^olian string is thus strung, that gathers harmony 
from the mute winds above, and pours it on the sen- 
sible ear below, filling the world with its music. 

A true, independent, spontaneous thought-power, 
a soul, a mind, we believe to belong to man alone ; 
while the appearance of it merely is found in the 
animals. Consciousness with them stands in strict 
dependence on the life-power, in simple ministration 
to it. The question, Whether animals think? we 
have elsewhere broached, and shall only add a few 
general considerations. Thought is not any mental 
activity, but that particular activity by which we 
rationalize, explain, and expound sensations under, 
some notion, which the mind furnishes for this pur- 
pose. Thus we may see a ball, but thought about it 
implies that we bring to it the notion of existence, 
and think of it as real ; or the idea of space, and con- 
template its size and position ; or that of causation, 
and inquire, Who placed it there ? These and like 
processes are thinking, and they imply the presence 
in the' mind of regulative ideas which give form and 
shape to them. There is another and inferior form 
of mental activity ; in it, that which is seen acts 
directly as a sensation, and secures appropriate effort 
without reflection. Thus the horse snaps at the 



234 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

pendant fruit, the lamb leaps the ditch, the bird 
lights on the spray, without consideration. So also 
recollections have the same direct, spontaneous hold 
on the entire powers. The horse quickens his pace 
as he approaches the home of his owner, and the dog 
greets with extravagant delight the return of his 
master. In these cases, nothing is required to ac- 
count for all the facts beyond the direct connection 
of the feelings with their appropriate manifestations. 
In some cases the steps are less simple, two or three 
more remote elements come in, and these we are 
ready to ascribe to the presence of thought. Thus, 
when the dog has made a raid on a neighbor's flock, 
he may hide away in fear. We at once say he is con- 
scious of his guilt, is ashamed, and does not therefore 
venture near his master. Yet his whole experience 
has been such as to fasten together these two expe- 
riences, an attack on sheep, and the fear of man. It 
is not strange, then, that the one should strongly 
revive the other. The animal has quick, alert senses, 
and a retentive memory. It must happen again and 
again in its experience that two, three, four states or 
actions should occur and recur in a fixed order ; these 
the memory so binds into one bundle, that the first 
of them draws after it the remainder in an automatic 
way. A fly annoys the flank of a horse ; he is hitched 
short, and makes an ineffectual effort to strike it ; in 
sheer restlessness he steps up and then snaps his 
teeth on the vexatious insect. This is done several 
times, and shortly, the connection established, he 
spontaneously steps forward before closing on his 
adversary, thus saving his jaws a superfluous and 



life; its nature and origin. — the mind. 235 

painful jerk. How inevitable is it, that man, with 
whom almost all mental activity is one of thought, 
should explain these, like, and more complicated 
actions, as the result of thinking ? Yet animal life 
is doubtless as homogeneous as our own, and either 
the most of its activities are guided by thought, or 
none of them are so directed. Thought, if possible, 
can hardly play a wholly secondary and subordinate 
part. Now the great mass of activity, almost the 
entire mass of it in animal life, calls for no other ex- 
planation, suggests no other, than this of spontaneous 
association. This being conceded, we see also that 
pure associations must, in some cases, be adequate 
to results which, taken by themselves, we should 
very naturally attribute to thought. Is it not, then, 
more philosophical to suppose that these are the 
highest attainments of association than indications 
of totally different powers, that nowhere appear in 
the bulk of action ? The way in which the parrot, 
the elephant, the horse are trained by repeated and 
fixed associations ; the speedy and decided limits 
which their education reaches ; the fact that that 
which has the appearance of thought often passes by 
descent from parent to offspring, as the good qualities 
of a game-dog ; the almost instantaneous and certain 
way in which the young of animals suit all their ac- 
tions to objects and spaces, in a method far beyond 
what is possible to thought ; the easy manner in 
which association can be made to explain instances 
of skill, at first sight difficult of solution ; together 
with the fact, that we project our own forms of action 
downward on the brute, interpreting his experience 



236 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

by ours ; and also that we multiply, highly color, and 
exaggerate stories of brute sagacity without careful 
inquiry into the form of the facts and the connections 
indicated by them, these and like considerations lead 
us to believe, that the proof that animals think is insuf- 
ficient, and, as the burden of the argument lies with 
those who attribute powers, that the philosophical 
conclusion remains, animals do not think, the ration- 
alizing, the intuitive, element is wanting in them. 

If this be true, then man takes rank at once in a 
new grade of beings ; to life-power is added thought- 
power, and the rational element is superinduced on 
the vital element as wholly above and beyond it. 
Some strange, abnormal facts look toward this result, 
such as the well-established one of two distinct phases 
of character and of consciousness, apparently diverse 
personalities, appearing successively in connection 
with the same body. This independence and supe- 
riority of the soul prepare the way for a belief in its 
immortality, and enter to confirm the argument from 
its moral nature and law. 

Such, then, are the two variable, spontaneous, spir- 
itual powers which appear everywhere at work in the 
world, those of life and of mind. The way in which 
they touch the physical being is inscrutable. They 
always arise under, and act through, its forms, yet 
reach results not only beyond these forms, but in the 
very teeth of them, as shown in other connections. 
Life stands in most varied and immediate relations 
with physical forces, while mind acts through it and 
by it in its highest forms. Life works matter up to 
the conditions required by mind, and yields its own 



life; its nature and origin. — the mind. 237 

best products to its possession. So strangely, yet so 
undeniably, are the visible and the invisible interlaced ; 
so deeply, even in its finite forms, does spiritual 
power sink down into material forces ; so marvel- 
lously are material forces put in delicate balance, and 
play under the intangible thoughts of our intangible 
intellectual life. Mystery can go no further ; yet 
deny this mystery, so sustained by all that we know 
of ourselves and of the external world, and we do not 
dispel the darkness, we only diffuse it, till night set- 
tles upon all, and even the phenomenal world, the 
facts of matter and the facts of mind, blend back again 
into confusion and chaos. Wisdom lies in putting 
mystery at the right points ; in making the night 
the forerunner of the day. 



LECTURE X. 

INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL FORCES AND SPIRITUAL 
POWERS. 

We have now explored the two distinct fields of 
inquiry offered us by our regulative ideas, those of 
matter and those of mind. We have discussed the 
laws and the sources of the phenomena of each. 
Matter gives us fixed, conditioned, permanent forces, 
whose law of interaction is causation, and whose 
abode is space. Mind gives us variable, spontaneous 
powers ; spontaneous in that there is not present 
permanent or transmitted force, but power in its very 
exercise springing into being ; variable in that it is 
not conditioned to one degree or grade of expression, 
but only restricted to a certain circle of results. The 
foreshadowing, the adumbration, of this power of the 
soul is the power of life. This, in its simplest forms, 
presents its entire phenomena in the physical world, 
yet is itself nowhere to be found as a distinct phys- 
ical force. In its superior forms, it is accompanied 
with the rudimentary conditions of mental life, though 
wanting its central feature. The law of spiritual 
phenomena is, in the power implied, that of freedom ; 
is, in the direction enjoined, that of virtue. The 
spontaneous and the free in mind, the thoughts and 
the volitions, so play into each other, that the whole 
structure of our life comes at length to be that which 
the soul, by its own choice, has shaped for itself. 



INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL FORCES, ETC. 239 

The spontaneous impulses are soon wholly expended 
in the directions and at the duties the voluntary pow- 
ers lay upon them. The seat, the home, of these 
spiritual facts, is consciousness. 

If, in matter, we found a steady, inscrutable force 
back of all phenomena, whose existence and main- 
tenance we can, without theoretical difficulty, refer 
directly to God, not less do we find in the lives vari- 
able and restricted powers, which suggest his imme- 
diate presence. We reason here also from the results 
to their source, and we thus reach a flexible power, 
with limits indeed assigned it, but not one expended 
in a fixed, physical, mechanical way, under forces 
from the very outset fully present. Here clearly 
appears something very like the yielding, change- 
able hand of personality. In the human mind, we 
approach a power of a still different character. True, 
primary, responsible volition is only possible on the 
supposition of independent and original strength. 
The very act of choice, if it be what it purports to be, 
must be our own, as God's acts are his,' and we 
become, in the likeness of God, centres of power ; 
and, through the forces by which he surrounds us, 
and into which our powers play, able to give new 
directions and efficiency to forces. In the present 
lecture, we desire to mark the interdependence of 
these two distinct lines of activity, those which, in 
the sequence of physical events, are fixed and causal, 
and those which, in the liberty of volition, are sponta- 
neous and changeable. They are interwoven by con- 
stant conversion, a fact of mind appearing as the 
product of a physical fact, and a physical fact arising 



24O SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

as the result of a mental one ; and thus they flow on 
together in distinct fields, yet in one time. 

In the first place, we see that these two forms of 
phenomena, with both of which we seem equally fa- 
miliar, being under the government of distinct laws, 
diverse notions, require each to be steadily considered 
subject to its own appropriate ideas, and that any 
transfer of these can only breed inexplicable confu- 
sion. Knowledge, like the human body, must rest on 
two distinct limbs, correlatives yet diverse, and car- 
rying it forward by alternate rather than simultaneous 
movement. Steadily to refer physical facts in their 
physical relations, to causes, to forces ; and spiritual 
facts to powers, is the first condition of maintaining 
the completeness and integrity of our knowledge. 
In other words, we must see how, under the diagram 
of our intellectual faculties, our original ideas, its two 
fields fall apart, and are to be searched out apart, if 
searched out successfully. 

In the earlier periods of knowledge, confusion pre- 
vails. Fortuity, the counterfeit of spontaneity, is 
thought to enter more or less extensively into the 
physical world ; while fatality, the counterfeit of 
causality, glides up into the connections of mind, 
Nor is this, in the form in which we wish to put it, 
an overthrow of the very doctrine of regulative ideas, 
grounded as these are on the necessary convictions 
of the mind. Physical effects as physical facts have 
never been thought to be without causes, but have 
been incautiously referred to spiritual agents ; neither 
have those practical claims and duties that hinge on 
liberty ever been surrendered, though their theoret- 



INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL FORCES, ETC. 2AI 

ical foundations have been obscured, and the laws 
and bounds of freedom left undefined. Two forms 
of the mind's action, have been blended, while each 
with equal pertinacity has rejected rejection, and 
refused annihilation. 

In the growth of knowledge, as inquiry has set in 
the one direction or in the other, has causation 
or liberty encroached respectively on the opposite 
ground, philosophy bringing its conclusions to the 
material world, or science forcing its laws upon mind. 
In the present and previous century the scientific 
tendency has been too strong for philosophy, and 
materialism, the bowing of all events to necessity, 
the reduction of all powers to the grade of forces, has 
been prevalent. Working in an opposite direction, 
idealism has more rarely evaporated the material 
world into a majestic cloud-scene, sent it all buoyant, 
airy, flexible into the heavens of its own conceptions, 
and then sported with its facts, fraying them into 
fleecy thinness, or piling them up in heavy masses, 
as the playful winds of thought chanced to come and 
go. But these victories of mind in its laws over 
matter have been so rare and harmless, as to have 
but little practical significance, at least for English- 
men. The chief points of discussion which pertain 
to the interaction of mind and matter have arisen 
against materialism, in its effort to sweep over and 
submerge the entire province of the soul, to roll its 
own sullen waves in cheerless requiem from pole to 
pole. Water and air are fit emblems of materialism 
and idealism, each struggling either to overwhelm 
or to vail the solid land with its own by-play of 
ii 



242 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

forces, the one taking it back into the darkness and 
death beneath it, the other hiding from it the light 
above it. 

The spirit of materialism early reveals itself in 
connection with miracles. Why are all physicists so 
hostile to miracles ? Plainly because these are a 
rent in the seamless garment of universal law ; an 
appearance of the ghost of slaughtered liberty, of 
banished personality ; a breaking in again of those 
very conceptions and powers which it has been the 
painstaking and protracted labor of science to expel. 
There is a certain instinctive antipathy, a nervous 
and morbid apprehension of all that looks toward the 
miraculous, on the part of physicists. They scorn 
and hiss it ; they chafe at it, and are nettled by it, as 
the unspeakable incredulity, the infatuated ignorance 
of men, refusing to be weaned from the past, ever 
ready to slip into former faults and fooleries, gravi- 
tating with the momentum of protracted habit and 
pertinacious associations, towards the blind fears and 
hopes, the irrational alarms and expectations, of 
barbarism. Men will not cease to be children, and 
shake off the phantom beings, the fleshless spirits, of 
the nursery. An antecedent conviction so strong 
takes possession of the merely scientific mind against 
miracles, that no proof is sufficient to overcome it, 
and very little proof sufficient even to call for an 
examination. A certain indignation and scorn seizes 
at once on the mind at the very idea that men will 
be at their old tricks, fools forever. The conflict is 
regarded not as one between theory and theory, but 
between keen-eyed science and dull-eyed ignorance, 



INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL FORCES, ETC. 243 

stupid credulity ; as the withstanding of a washed sow 
bent again on the mire. 

So many have felt the force of this new sentiment, 
coming forward under the endorsement of science, of 
careful, historical and critical inquiry, boasting the 
progress of the past centuries as its own achievement, 
the emancipation of mind as its own labor, that even 
those who have maintained their belief in miracles 
have sometimes done it with such qualifications and 
concessions and apologies as to destroy the true char- 
acter of these more manifest works of God. A mir- 
acle purports to stand, and must, if a true miracle, 
stand in direct intervention of natural law. It is an 
extraordinary, not an ordinary, method of working ; 
one that manifestly transcends those limits which 
God has established between his own activity and 
those of his creatures. 

To say, therefore, that a miracle may be the result 
of another law of nature, striking in at remote peri- 
ods, like the alarm of a clock, provided for in the 
original structure to meet certain exigencies at cer- 
tain intervals, is at once to destroy its intrinsic char- 
acter, and pervert its moral power. It is no longer a 
miracle, as indicating the descent of Divine power on 
nature, but simply discloses a new and more intricate 
way in which his power is locked up in, and condi- 
tioned to, nature. Thus the miracle, stripped of the 
significance it purports at the time to have, becomes 
dishonest and deceptive, a reproach to the credulity 
of those who accept it, and a shame to the integrity 
of him who employs it. A miracle towers straight 
up into the heavens, cleaves through natural law, 



244 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

parts it on either hand, as the rod of Moses the Red 
Sea, or it is nothing, nay, worse than nothing, a delu- 
sion and a superstition. We wish, at least in attitude, 
to confront squarely this scientific sentiment against 
miracles, and to take what blows it can give. We 
wish to carry this controversy to the court of reason, 
and press a decision there. We are not fearful of the 
issue, we only desire to precipitate it. 

Under the conjoint scheme of science and philoso- 
phy now laid down, we see that the miracle stands in 
perfect sympathy with one half of the constitution of 
the world. In mind we have spontaneous, free, crea- 
tive power, a power of a strictly supernatural charac- 
ter. If we define nature as covering those events 
which occur under fixed, invariable law, making it 
coextensive with the physical world, then the mind 
of man is supernatural. Its activities are not condi- 
tioned to any specific results. If we define nature as 
a term applicable to all events, whether of a material 
or spiritual character, which are familiar, which con- 
stitute a part of our ordinary experience, then the 
mind is not a supernatural agent ; but while found 
within nature, is yet perfectly allied to that supernat- 
ural agency which the miracle discloses out of nature. 
One half, then, of the kingdom of knowledge is in 
perfect accord with miraculous intervention, indeed 
exhibits a perpetual intrusion of mind upon matter 
of essentially the same nature. It is not till we have 
taken the material world as the starting point of our 
inquiries, and resolved to rule out and overrule all 
laws from other kingdoms of thought by the private 
statutes and by-laws of this kingdom, that we have 



INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL FORCES, ETC. 245 

any ground whatever for the feeling which leads to 
the exclusion of miracles. Get back to mind, plant 
one foot on philosophy and only one on science, and 
then these prejudgments rise, disperse, hide them- 
selves in clear air, like morning mists, and we wonder 
that conceptions, the merely transient product of the 
moral temperature, could ever have so perverted and 
restricted our vision. Let the damps of earth lift, let 
them cease to linger just about us, passing upward 
they shall conceal nothing, shall show deep rifts into 
the blue beyond, cut off gratefully from us the too 
intense light, and disclose a diversified and cheerful 
landscape. 

If our conception of force as God's conditioned 
and established, yet direct and immediate, activity is 
admissible, certainly a miracle can find easy way 
into nature. Let his force strengthen itself or with- 
draw itself, and the work is done. Some may feel 
that there is a profounder objection to miracles in the 
character of God ; that they imply variability, fickle- 
ness, uncertainity in his methods. This also seems 
to us a shallow, inadequate presentation of the Divine 
nature. We object to it, as overlooking the fact that 
there are two parties to the world — God and man. 
This common ground of intercourse and labor does 
indeed require settled laws, unmistakable and inflex- 
ible conditions ; but the weak faith of man also re- 
quires, lest God should be altogether hidden behind 
these impersonal rules, manifest intervention, direct 
personal revelation, and for this the miracle becomes 
a necessary, natural, obvious condition. It is both 
wise and gracious, it is neither inconsiderate nor 



246 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

changeable, for God to shape his actions to the va- 
riable conditions under which they are put forth. 
We have little sympathy with that conception of 
God which fears to set him about any one thing at 
any one time, lest it should limit and belittle his ac- 
tivity, and proceeds to withdraw him into the eternity 
and immutability of his purposes, to make of him a 
still, deep ocean of potential being, that cannot ripple 
lest it break its own infinite repose, and shiver into 
a million facets its now unperturbed, homogeneous 
reflection. An Infinite One that cannot accept his 
own acts lest he be broken up and lost in them, that 
looks more to the statics than the dynamics of being, 
is not the Jehovah of our thoughts. A God that 
lives and feels in every act is more to our intellects, 
and every way more to our hearts, than this passion- 
less potentiality. 

The secondary and transient office of miracles in 
the economy of the world, however, may rightly be 
urged. They break ground for faith, but they are 
not the condition of permanent faith. They are like 
those slight shocks which precipitate crystalline ac- 
tion, or those initiatory changes which unlock chem- 
ical affinities. Miracles help the mind to a momen- 
tary finding of God, but we learn otherwise how to 
abide in his presence. The miracle must always 
remand us to the natural law under which we are to 
remain on a permanent, hourly footing of intercourse 
with Heaven. If miracles, ostensible miracles, lapse 
into a series of wonders, into growing and multiplying 
prodigies, they soon intoxicate the mind, make of its 
faith a wild delirium, destroy the health and repose 



INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL FORCES, ETC. 247 

of the soul, and leave it bereft not only of strength, 
but of its antecedent conditions. Nothing so shat- 
ters and shakes into paralysis the spiritual constitu- 
tion as repeated and ever-returning shocks of the 
marvellous. There must be, there always will be, a 
growth out of miracles and the need of them into the 
calm possession of God, in his habitual and most 
expressive forms of action. An electric current may 
perhaps quicken the sluggish wheels of life, it cannot 
remain the permanent condition of well-being. The 
intense light of the miracle is flashed into nature, 
only that we may commence our study of it, and feel 
henceforth and forever that it is God's wisdom and. 
love that are everywhere here. It is the single pres- 
sure of the clasping hand, the transient light of the 
earnest eye, that throws in upon us the love of an- 
other soul, ordinarily shown in a grave, diligent re- 
gard o£ our habitual wants. 

A second point in the interaction of material forces 
and spiritual powers is that of prayer. We have not 
yet discussed the being and nature of God. The 
reality of our faith in him being assumed, it is evident 
that the method in which prayer is, or at least may 
be, answered, involves again the relation of these two 
lines of events. From this question the physicist, 
however, excuses himself. It does not present that 
plain, bold, historical front which, in the case of mir- 
acles, precludes neglect. The answer of prayer is a 
matter exclusively of individual faith ; and interests, 
therefore, chiefly the religious mind. The purely 
scientific thinker looks upon it, at least as ordinarily 
held, as an impossibility, and lightly dismisses the 



248 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

subject. Here, again, the distinctive, physical senti- 
ment has so found its way beyond halls of science into 
the precincts and courts of religion, that some of her 
teachers are willing to say, that the answer of prayer 
is another constitutional trick of the machine, and 
that natural laws, in their first adjustment, contem- 
plate and provide for it This view is so forced as to 
be essentially absurd. The very notion of a law is 
that it is inflexible, that it pursues one course of 
action ; indeed it is nothing but the statement of 
such a fact. A law, therefore, is of the nature of a 
straight line ; and no straight line, and no series of 
parallel straight lines, can be made to pass through 
all possible points, located at random. Yet the peti- 
tions of men, in reference to the provisions of nature, 
are such chance positions, such accidental, discon- 
nected points. No consistent, independent system 
can cover them, any more than a definite curve can 
sweep through all spaces. Either, therefore, the 
natural law must be conditioned to the prayers of 
men, and suffer their irregularity, or the prayers of 
men must be conditioned to the law, and thus for- 
feit their own freedom. The two things, necessity 
and liberty, a fixed and a free sequence, cannot both 
rest on the same basis. They must maintain their 
independent relation, or one be swallowed up of the 
other. 

This view also gives a new and false coloring to 
the act of prayer. The petition is for that which is 
predetermined and necessary, and the answer fol- 
lows in no sense from the prayer. Thus what comes 
to the surface for the eye and faith of the believer 



INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL FORCES, ETC. 249 

is quite different from the real facts, quite opposite 
to them. Prayer seems to be a means of getting 
near to God, but is not ; and our too credulous belief 
flings over it a deceitful light. The answer of prayer, 
both on moral and scientific grounds, both as a matter 
of honesty and of sagacity, must be upheld as a direct 
intervention of God in favor of the suppliant, or 
must be abandoned. An answer to prayer which 
pertains to physical events, so far as these are not in 
the hand of man, must be of the nature of a miracle, 
with this important difference, that the one openly 
transcends the powers of nature, and the other does 
not. The one is thus a matter of common and pub- 
lic significance, the other of individual faith only. 
In our day it is thought to savor of weakness and su- 
perstition to believe in a direct, supernatural answer 
to prayer, and the individual convictions of a multi- 
tude of intelligent people, their settled, frequently 
verified, private faith, productive in them of none of 
the fruits of superstition, but quite the reverse, pos- 
sess scarcely a feather's weight in the estimation of 
those who propose to put this question on a truly sci- 
entific basis. Sad is it that these words, a scientific 
basis, should have such a one-sided bearing ; that 
unbelief should have made of them the favorite cant 
for the introduction of its own dogmas ; that a spirit 
of investigation, that is so skillful with the micro- 
scope, magnifying all things close at hand, should be 
so awkward with the telescope, bringing near that 
which is afar off. Sad is it that alleged spiritual facts 
do not even claim consideration, have lost respecta- 
bility and repute, are, when they seek admission, su- 
ii # 



250 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

perciliously nodded into* the street again, as of too 
erratic, flighty and decayed a cast to occupy time — 
the time of these sagacious, practical men, this last 
nobility of knowledge, who have the world now in 
hand, its molecules and its masses, its ways above 
and below, past and to come, and are thus busy while 
the day lasts ; as if truth were only the present at- 
mosphere in which intellectual ephemera float, to be 
followed by like ephemera, playing in a like way, in 
like fickle sunshine. This assumption of all reason by 
short-sighted science, that compensates the fine dis- 
closure it gives of the passing hour, by the utterly 
blind way in which it stumbles on to the final event, 
and falls into the abyss beyond, is the folly, the nar- 
rowness, the bigotry of our time. 

We need to be at no loss to see how prayer is an- 
swered. The forces of the world are not so weighed 
up and stamped, like mint-bags, that nothing can 
be added to them or substracted from them. If 
these, each and all, are united instantly, freshly, 
every moment, morning by morning, evening by 
evening, to their tasks under the hand of God, may 
he not grade them to the wants of his children ? and 
do not these wants call for fixedness on this side, 
and flexibility on that ? Is it not as irrational to ask 
for nothing as to ask for all things ? If indolence 
and thoughtlessness are the products of an ill- 
grounded faith, that flings itself blindly on spiritual 
powers, are not love, strength, consolation the rich 
fruits of a sense of God's presence and aid ? What 
nobler lesson, striking upward to the intellect and 
downward to the heart, outward to the actions and 



INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL FORCES, ETC. 25 1 

inward to the affections, imparting the power of 
thought and the repose of faith, than this inquiry, 
What in nature are we to do, and what aid under 
God are we to have in the doing of it ; how are its 
ordinary and its extraordinary liabilities to be met ? 
What better path can be thrown up for us, with 
more bracing air and commanding out-look, than this 
which trends along the narrow ridge between the 
purely natural and the purely supernatural, between 
Nature and God, Earth and Heaven, disclosing the 
forces to be met and worked with there, disclosing 
the light, the promises, the powers that flow in upon 
us here, ready for a spiritual, a truly potent, minis- 
tration in our behalf ? He who lifts and pries in the 
physical world alone, whose fulcrums are all stone, 
and cordage all hemp, may not appreciate this, may 
come from his own discipline a tough, sagacious, 
muscular fellow, that one is reluctant to give at last 
as food to the worms ; but he who has philosophy in 
him as well as science, who casts the light of his own 
divinely free and illumined spirit on the things before 
him, will understand, that it is often better to wait 
than to do, to trust than to know, to pray than to 
labor, and that the power, the stroke of wing, that 
bears the whole man upward is now from the physical 
and now from the spiritual side, is now a using of 
what God gives us, is now a waiting on him for 
more. It were a strange thing, indeed, if the minor 
virtues and conditions of intellectual life were pro- 
vided for ; if foresight, patience, industry were called 
forth and rewarded, and no corresponding address to 
our higher affections, no provocation to our- spiritual 



252 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

emotions were found. At no point is human life 
more blended with the Divine life, more drawn up 
into it, than at this point of prayer, a free approach 
of man in gratitude, inquiry, request to his Maker. 

What does this view of prayer allow us to ask for ? 
We may ask, as the child asks, for anything that we 
think that we need, which is not within the reach of 
our own exertion, and whose bestowment would not 
evidently contravene a natural law. In gratification 
of our own wants, we are not to expect miracles ; 
since this would involve a constant, an habitual dis- 
regard of those very limits which God has for our 
well-being assigned to his action. David might pray 
for the life of his child, while the child lived, not for 
its restoration after death. Death was the distinct 
expression of the Divine will. There is nothing com- 
plicated or obscure in this view. We stand in like 
conditions before God as before an earthly parent. 
What has been distinctly refused us, we may not 
again ask for. Will, once expressed, is to be final 
with us. Events that cannot be altered without a 
manifest intervention are of this nature. It is nothing 
to us that what we ask may involve a modification of 
natural forces ; these, till put forth, are the unexpres- 
sed thoughts of our Heavenly Father. That the thing 
petitioned is precluded by forces that have openly 
taken effect does concern us, for therein is found the 
clearly expressed purpose of God. Whatever has 
passed the obvious limits of natural law discloses the 
will of God, whatever remains within those limits is 
as yet unpronounced. 

The answers we receive to prayer turn wholly on 



INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL FORCES, ETC. 253 

faith. They arise under the disguise of natural law, 
and may be ascribed, as the soul is inclined, to God's 
hand, or to an unusual coincidence of causes. We 
may stand in them before nature or before God as 
we please. Indeed the truly inspired spirit will make 
no difference between the two. To it nothing is 
ordinary, nothing extraordinary, in God's love and 
intervention. Prayer springs from faith, and in its 
answer is addressed to faith. It is unto us according 
to our faith. Prayer is capable of the highest use, of 
the easiest abuse. It pertains to the secrets of the 
soul, its living walk with God, and subserves a living 
purpose only as it finds God, feels his strength, and 
puts that strength to full and faithful service. The 
answer of prayer lightens not the labor laid on us 
under natural laws, nor gives us the presumption 
attendant on their easy arrest. The blessings of 
prayer must descend like dew on growing plants, 
must come as refreshments to working men, before 
they can play into the healthy, spiritual economy of 
the soul, and build it up. 

The sciolist will most assuredly be ready to deride 
this view of prayer. What, does God play fast and 
loose ! Are forces which are fixed and unchangeable 
for science, flexible and facile to faith ? Are we to 
believe that action which is immutable, perfectly so, 
to the most searching observation, becomes beyond 
observation, mutable, bending by increase and by 
diminution to the wants and wishes of men ? that 
faith is thus called on to fly into the very face of 
scientific thought ? Even so, we answer, and we 
stand before the judgment of reason. How the scio- 



254 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

list is to overrule convictions shaped in the realm of 
mind, by the mere inertia of opposite convictions, 
shaped among physical forces, we do not see. The 
appeal must be to a full bench, to all the powers of 
mind. At that tribunal it may seem as probable that 
God should give as that he should not give, that he 
should be possessed of the pliancy of personality as 
of the rigidity of force. 

There is another still more recondite interplay of 
powers in the world, the immediate action of the 
Spirit of God on the spirit of man. To this, no form 
of experience gives us a clue. So thoroughly do 
these influences form an invisible world, in their de- 
scent upon us, respect the integrity of our own men- 
tal structure ; so entirely conform themselves to the 
appearances, buoyancy and upward lift of our own 
thoughts, that they are no more alien, abnormal to 
the mind than is the food which the plant gathers 
from the air to its structure. Indeed, is it so much 
more wonderful that the Spirit may come close to 
our spiritual life, may quicken and enliven it, than 
that leaves, floating in the air, can be with it in such 
constant, invisible interchange of material, drinking 
freely deep draughts of life ? What pitiful, blinding 
tricks our senses play upon us, if we are to believe 
and conceive nothing which they have not confirmed ; 
and this, while they leave their own facts more than 
half hidden in inscrutable processes. That the Spirit 
of God comes near to man, that the spirit of man, 
without loss of freedom or the least sacrifice of its 
own integrity, comes under the quickening power of 
this interchange of life, are truths of such scope and 



INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL FORCES, ETC. 255 

quality that we pick them not up in the streets, 
but they come to us direct from Heaven, are of so 
subtile, vital and profound a character, that they lie 
not out distinct, separate facts in our experience, but 
are the secret and substance of our spiritual life, its 
daily atmosphere. 

The perpetual descent of spiritual powers on phys- 
ical forces as now indicated in miracles, in answers to 
prayer, and, indirectly, in the influence of the Divine 
Spirit on the human spirit, we are disposed neither to 
limit nor disguise in statement ; nor pass lightly in 
discussion, as unable to endure scrutiny ; nor to 
present in a shame-faced way, as if it were the weak- 
ness and not the strength of our creed. We are not 
careful to inquire who do, and who do not, regard this 
constant, natural and supernatural presence of spirit- 
ual powers in the world as a good joke ; or who, not 
willing to deny it, are yet anxious to refine it away ; 
we believe it to be the soundest of the conclusions 
of philosophy, and the holiest of truths. 

In view of the ground gone over thus far, it is plain 
that we are decidedly right or as decidedly wrong ; 
that in cutting straight down between matter and 
mind, and between the conceptions that rule in the 
two directions, we show ground and reason for great 
diversity in men's opinions, according as they allow 
one or another class of ideas to overrule the mind. 
The entire attitude of the physicist is made perfectly 
plain, nay, seen to be inevitable from the moiety of 
knowledge to which he confines himself. Start the 
processes of thought in material forces, let the causal 
conceptions there applicable grow daily in power ; 



256 . SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

let the perfect solutions these offer of all physical 
facts be dwelt on, and increasingly admired ; let the 
facts of philosophy remain strange, remote, unfamiliar, 
obscure to the thoughts, and how certain is it, that 
spiritual conceptions will become more and more 
attenuated, till they vanish altogether. Men occa- 
sionally modify the superstructure of thought, but do 
not often meddle with its foundations. Let these 
foundations, therefore, be laid in the material world 
alone, and the longer they think, the more they in- 
quire, revolving in one round of conceptions, the 
more certainly do they depart from those initial 
ideas, whose presence and explanatory power can 
alone make the phenomena of the spiritual world real 
and rational. For this tendency, blindly taken up 
and blindly pursued, there is no remedy, but sound, 
mental science, and starting points taken in a new 
field, and followed to new conclusions. That con- 
tempt for metaphysics should accompany an exclusive 
cultivation of physics is as natural as that the costume 
of a strange people should seem grotesque to us. He 
who, living on one side of the globe, knows nothing 
of the other, must have restricted, inadequate and 
inflexible conceptions of it. Look straight forward 
at the landscape before you : invert the head and 
look again. The scene is strangely softened, a fascin- 
ation, a dreamy, celestial unreality has stolen over it. 
Raise the head, and back slide the fields and forests 
and valleys to their common-place appearance. It is 
as if you had caught on the face of a friend a sudden 
flash of inspiration. Such are the variable aspects of 
nature under slight changes, but much more subtile 



INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL FORCES, ETC. 257 

and significant are those diverse phases of intellectual 
light which steal over the fields of knowledge, and 
make of them, now the safe grazing ground of the 
senses, now the wild haunts of weird thoughts, and 
now celestial plains, checkered far and wide with 
heavenly beauty. The exclusively scientific tendency 
of our day, we challenge, as it forces its way into the 
departments of philosophy and religion ; we remand 
it back to its labors, back to the tasks assigned it, 
assured that the conceit of its great successes there 
will make it here only the more dangerous, dogmatic 
and intractable. 

On the other hand, to one who starts the fruitful 
movements of thought in contemplating the phenom- 
ena of mind, who establishes the ideas that rule here, 
and makes them familiar to the understanding, there 
not only appears no improbability in this interde- 
pendence of spiritual powers and physical forces, but 
that the last should escape from under the first, the 
less from the greater, seems to him a conception 
impossible and absurd. That matter should set up 
as against mind to plan and make and rule a universe, 
to put form and force into it, is as if the dog should 
command his master, or as if the satire of Swift 
should prove true, and the horse turn out to be the 
man. What, we pray to know, is mind, finite and 
infinite to do, but rule over matter ? Or what else 
is it evidently doing day by day ? We can give no 
other interpretation to all that we see about us, but 
this very interpretation, of the supremacy of the soul 
in the body, and through the body in the world. 
Liberty, spontaneous power, bound to no causal con- 



258 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

nections, but using these as occasion offers, these 
are the conceptions and this the experience with 
which we are familiar, and that God should work in 
a like way in a universe, yet more immediately in his 
hand, is as much a matter of course as our own vari- 
able plans for the day and freedom in their execution. 
The pregnant question, then, comes, Which of these 
two classes of thinkers have reason with them ? It 
is not difficult to decide to which the vast majority 
of men have belonged ; but the self-confident physi- 
cist, sure of his new ground, distinctly advances, like 
Spencer, this fact, that the masses of men have be- 
lieved otherwise, as a reason which makes for the 
minority. Old and antiquated are synonymous in 
the vocabulary of the sciolist. Religion and super- 
stition are different sides of the same thing, while 
metaphysics are the last retreat and hiding-place of 
all blind beliefs. 

In this last conviction, the materialist is so far cor- 
rect, that out of philosophy has come, and will con- 
tinue to come, those conceptions which are to plague 
him more and more. Reason lies with him, if the 
mind, in its own phenomena, as a distinct and pe- 
culiar fact, is to be overlooked ; and matter be made 
to furnish out the entire universe with its laws. 
Reason lies with us, if the seat of reason is in the 
mind, if what it believes of itself is equally true with 
that which it believes of matter, if it may be pre- 
sumed to know as much of its own principles as of 
those which rule in the external world, and is as 
competent to recognize its own nature and activities 
as those of material objects. In short, metaphysics 



INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL FORCES, ETC. 259 

must be swept away, the inadequacy of the mind's 
own action, its interpretation of its own phenomena 
in its own field be shown, and that too by the mind 
itself, as a condition of the triumph of the physical 
tendency. Our thoughts must stultify themselves, 
confess their own unsoundness, before they can be 
bound over to the external world. 

It is, then, in the field of philosophy that the bat- 
tle is to be fought, and the first inquiry which an 
earnest searcher into these foundations of truth must 
put to himself is, What are the grounds of rational 
conviction ? This question carries him at once to 
the mind for an answer, and if he accepts, as he 
must and should accept, all of its persistent action, 
its fixed forms of assertion, as ultimate, as equally 
authoritative, then his next question becomes, What 
are these ? If at length he makes answer, as we 
have made answer, They are the senses, they are the 
intuitions, they are the understanding, each with a 
form of knowing, each supreme in that form, he at 
length finds himself planted squarely on the physical 
and the spiritual worlds, and their junction and inter- 
course inevitable. The inquiry, then, With whom 
rests the balance of reason, the materialist or realist, 
in their diverse views of the facts of the world? 
finds an answer in the comparative breadth, scope 
and correctness of the philosophies that underlie the 
two systems. The arbitrament is here, here is the 
appeal, from this court must come forth the final ver- 
dict. No complaint is made of Mill, Spencer, Bain, 
that they do not carry the case up to philosophy, that 
they suppose, with their feeble and remote followers, 



260 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

that this tribunal is abolished ; but that their phil- 
osophy is partial and unsound, that they use the 
mind to destroy the mind rather than to unfold in 
ull force its faculties, that they take sides against the 
mind, and make a point of its alleged weaknesses. 
The very powers they so dexterously wield, the bold 
way in which they strike out against their own inde- 
pendent, spiritual being, remain a proof for that being 
more unanswerable than the proofs by them offered 
against it. 

If it now be asked, since the point at which this 
balance of reason rests is admittedly to be decided in 
the court of philosophy, whether we are unwilling to 
trace the controversy ; is to be fought out between 
men of strength in this remote arena, how are we in 
the meantime to be assured of the direction of the 
under-current of truth, whose general course is of 
such moment to us ? we do not believe that a suf- 
ficient answer to this question is very far off, or very 
difficult. We act every day and hour as though we be- 
lieved in causes, though neither Spencer nor Mill nor 
Bain find any foundations for the belief. We act as 
though man were free and blame possible, though the 
philosophy of these gentlemen discovers no grounds 
for the conviction. May we not as easily and ra- 
tionally accept the soundness, in general direction, 
of that vast volume of belief in spiritual powers, a 
belief from which none of us can escape, even mo- 
mentarily, except by spasmodic, gymnastic throes of 
thought ? In other words, it is unreason, it is 
against reason, to abandon the settled conclusions 
of reason through centuries otherwise than on the 



INTERACTION OF PHYSICAL FORCES, ETC. 26 1 

clearest and most sufficient grounds. Rivers no more 
certainly reveal the slopes of continents, as they 
plough their deep beds to the ocean, than do the 
long-standing convictions of men — not as to one fact 
or another, one particular example or another, but as 
to the general drift and nature of facts — disclose the 
real, the inherent, links of thought. Indeed, how can 
it be otherwise ? Either mind is in hopeless conflict 
with itself, or the laws of mind, the laws of its safe 
action, must be found laid down in that great sweep 
of history, wherein are traced its universal, general, 
generic movements. 

Most instructive is the present reaction against ma- 
terialism in the form of spiritualism, so called. Spread 
smooth the crumpled bull's hide here, and it only 
wrinkles the more hopelessly there. For every absurd 
negative here, there is a yet more absurd affirmation 
there ; for every credulity banished on this side, two 
spring up on that. This storehouse of residuary 
phenomena, this limbo of inexplicable effects, only 
becomes the more chocked and crowded as the phys- 
icist sweeps the material world of all obstructions. 
The world, in moving onward, maintains, like an 
equilibrist, its narrow footing by thrusting out a hand, 
a rod, or a weight — now on this side, now on that. 
The wisdom of the sciolist we are called on to balance 
just now with the folly of the spiritualist, like with 
like. May God give us more breadth of footing, and 
more strength to walk, lest in some frantic out-thrust 
of thought, we lose our poise, and plunge sheer over 
into the gulf of materialism, presenting, on a larger 
scale, the sad spectacle which sometimes occupies our 



262 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

civilization, of a fool perishing by his own dexterity, 
while sight-seers return one by one with shame to 
their homes. 

There is a Nemesis that waits on unbelief, on the 
refusal of the faith that belongs to our faculties and 
to their Author, which shortly plunges us into some 
new credulity, and laughs at the reason which over- 
leaps itself, and leaves the mind to flounder in fresh 
difficulties of its own creation. The firm, steady 
maintenance of the ground thus far gained in the 
history of thought, is the first condition of a safe 
advance. 



LECTURE XL 

PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 

Religion rests on a belief in the being of a God, 
and is determined in its character by the character 
of God, and of our relations to him. Men inevitably 
reason, in the first instance, from the form of their 
own actions, from the explanations they are accus- 
tomed to bring to them, to the nature and form of 
Divine action. In all that we do in the external 
world, we start with matter, we change its forms and 
positions, and these changes reveal the purposes we 
are pursuing, and our resources in their execution. 
Hence, the stone hatchet, the implements of Avar 
or of husbandry, become instantly to us a testimony 
of the presence and labors of men. It is thus natural 
for man to think of Gcd as starting with matter. 
Matter itself he scarcely contemplates as requiring, in 
its presence, any explanation, and readily regards it 
as eternal, or overlooks the question altogether. It 
is the obvious arrangements of the world, its events, 
its organic beings, its order and completeness, that 
first send him forth in search of a Creator, a Ruler. 
This early impulse toward a supernatural power is of 
so simple and inevitable a character, that it may, with 
sufficient, if not with absolute, truthfulness be said, 
that all men feel it, and that an adequate and uni- 
versal basis is found therein for religion. 
* Much later, however, there comes another view of 



264 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

the case. Matter ceases to be regarded as so much 
dead, indifferent material, provided in inexhaustible 
quantities, and waiting to be shaped by mind into a 
universe. Matter, in its several forms, in its first 
elements, is found to be constituted of definite qual- 
ities, distinct properties or forces ; and these, by 
their very nature, by their inevitable combinations 
and interactions, give rise to order, by slow stages 
passing into a complete, physical system. The seat 
of thought is now seen to be one step deeper than 
was at first supposed. The Creative Mind is not so 
much at work on matter, as it is in and through mat- 
ter. The forces which we call matter, in their intrin- 
sic nature, the quality and quantity of the elements 
in the world, their relations to each other in varied 
and complicated interactions, are found to contain 
the secrets of structure and of order in the universe. 
Thus, such elements as oxygen and carbon and nitro- 
gen and hydrogen, in their amounts, in their exact, 
peculiar and complementary qualities, are seen to 
hold the mysteries of earth and water, of air and the 
life it feeds, and that if the starting-point had been 
materially different, either in the nature of the several 
forms of matter, or in their amount, all must have 
been chaos and confusion, incapable of construction. 
The elements as elements are either at peace with 
each other in material and organic structures, and 
are constructive under the plan prepared for them, 
or, as active forces, they are at war with each other, 
and destructive to every systematic purpose. In the 
one case the physical universe grows out of its con- 
stituents, as the plant from the germ ; in the other 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 265 

case, it becomes impossible. Not only is not the 
world made mechanically from the outside, it could 
not be so made. There is no rest and repose in its 
forces, except as they obey their own affinities, and 
revolve in the orbits of change congenital to them. 
Matter is its properties, is known only as its proper- 
ties, and these properties being given, the material 
universe follows of course in due time. Matter in its 
own creation, goes to work at once to build up a 
cosmos. 

Here, then, the old ground on which the being of 
a God was predicated is lost, and another ground 
must be found, or the argument fails. If we can still 
look upon matter as eternal, we have no occasion for 
a Creator and Ruler, so far as the inorganic physical 
world is concerned, since the nucleus of its strength, 
the root of its perfections are hidden in itself. It is 
framed more cunningly than the building, and not 
merely goes up, but grows up, without the sound of 
hammer. Evidently unbelief will now take encour- 
agement, will hold fast to the old dogma of the eter- 
nity of matter, and cast away, as ill founded and un- 
necessary, the argument from design that went with 
it. Order, plan thus become necessary and native to 
the world, the first, last, and only form of physical 
forces. It is plain that in this stage of the argument 
between faith and infidelity, the origin of life in the 
globe becomes a question of great interest — the one 
side seeking to establish independent, creative points, 
the other struggling to braid this force also into the 
physical forces of the world. The geologic record, 
which was greatly instrumental in giving this new 
12 



266 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

conception of matter, as holding in itself the slowly 
developing germs of order, is diligently searched for 
the sources of the lives whose remains are so abund- 
ant in it. The Darwinian theory, inevitably adopted 
by those who would make Nature sufficient to herself, 
becomes at once possessed of a religious as well as 
of a scientific interest. The proof of this theory 
remains very incomplete, yet, if it should prevail, it 
does not^LS we have shown, submerge the successive, 
creative ^steps indicated by the various forms of life ; 
it merely"" shortens and multiplies them. Hence the 
argument of the supernaturalist holds as strongly, if 
not as obviously, by these many and smaller fibers, 
as by the fewer and larger ones under the old view. 
The absolute size of the cable is not diminished, it is 
simply modified in its form of construction. 

We believe, however, that the true, the better, 
defence lies deeper than this, that our notion of the 
nature of matter should be reconsidered, and that the 
material universe, as a mere momentary existence, in 
any one stage of its being, clearly demands a Creator 
and Sustainer, and this because a precise, definite 
compound of precise, definite forces expresses and 
does the work of mind, and of mind only. A condi- 
tioned force, that is a force shaped and fixed toward 
a distinct, definite end, does of itself disclose thought. 
Hydrogen in its properties, oxygen in its properties, 
the two in their combined and related properties, 
plainly evince the presence and activity of mind. 
Thus chemistry, which has done much to give rise to 
the doubt, does still more to resolve it. The very 
interesting and able lectures of Prof. Cook, delivered 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 267 

here as an earlier course, are instructive in this con- 
nection. We must reach the Unconditioned through 
the conditioned, wherever we find it. Every fixed 
constituent of a settled plan opens to the eye the 
author of that plan. Thus in our new apprehension 
of the nature of matter, the possibility of its eternity 
is swept away, our negligent thinking concerning 
that point is rebuked, and, borne deeper into the 
nature of the world, we are brought by so much 
nearer to God, the seat of its strength. We find his 
thought and his life and his government as much in 
the very first as in the very latest activity. The 
foundations are laid in every element, and in every 
property of every element. Proportion, adaptation, 
definite quantities and qualities and relations appear 
from the outset, and show that matter, in its very 
origin, is of wisdom, is of God. 

: Reasoning from mere matter of such a fixed nature ; 
we may almost say, as organic a compound as a ker- 
nel of wheat, or a chestnut, we demand for it an 
intelligent Creator ; the language more frequently 
employed is, a First Cause. This expression we 
object to as faulty, as frequently springing from 
obscurity of thought and leading to it. The word 
cause we would apply exclusively to fixed, conditioned, 
and hence physical, forces. In this more exact and 
safe use of the word, the expression, a first cause, is 
not applicable to an intelligent being ; does not reach 
that to which in such a case it is intended to apply. 
A false coloring or direction is also given by it to the 
argument. If we can arbitrarily stop with any cause, 
and call this a first cause, demanding no further 



268 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

explanation, then we should excuse ourselves entirely 
from pushing backward from one cause to another. 
If we are impelled to reason from the cause before us 
to the one which preceded it, and has passed into it, 
and from this to one yet prior, we cannot check this 
movement at any later point whatever, without inval- 
idating the entire chain of connections on which we 
have so far proceeded. The dependence of the latest 
cause on the antecedent one is no more fixed and 
necessary than that of the first cause, so called, on 
something prior to it. Causes are all conditioned, 
and we cannot get beyond this chain by taking any 
one link in it, and giving it a new name. What, 
therefore, the general idea of causation claims, in final 
satisfaction of the mind and arrest of the argument, 
is a spontaneous, that is, a personal, source of causes. 
The so-called First Cause cannot be a cause, but 
must be a person, since only a person can lift the 
thoughts above the plane of conditioned activities. 
It is these forces of the world as conditioned that 
demand explanation, and this is not afforded by add- 
ing to them another conditioned force, but by bring- 
ing them forth from an unconditioned power or person. 
Moreover, a finite person, though possessed of 
spontaneous power, is restricted within a limited cir- 
cle, both as regards the time and degree of its exer- 
cise. There is in him a germ of spontaneity, but not 
an unlimited germ. He may grow up into a single 
star, but cannot be likened to that nebulosity out 
of which come all stars. Hence these finite bounds 
must be removed, or we only have a partial, sec- 
ondary point of attachment for a few lines of force, 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 269 

not the final gathering of them all up into one hand. 
Our First Person, therefore, must be an uncreated 
and infinite one, the I Am of the universe. Thus, in 
the completed conception, a new regulative idea is 
introduced, that of thg infinite ; is joined to those 
previously contained in personality, and we have the 
Almighty, the onl} w *idependent and perfect Being. 

This notion of the infinite, which gives form and 
sufficiency to the Christian idea of God, has, like 
other intuitive conceptions, suffered repeated and va- 
rious attacks. Hamilton and Mansel have regarded 
it as inconceivable, while Spencer, with the same 
general drift of thought, has spoken of it as an ille- 
gitimate, symbolical, pseudo-idea. This notion must 
be vindicated, or our conception of God fails us. We 
regard the objection made to it as inconceivable as 
of no moment whatever. By conceivable and incon- 
ceivable in this connection can only be meant pre- 
sentable or not presentable in the imagination. Now 
the imagination works only under the forms of the 
senses, and to say, therefore, of an idea that it is 
inconceivable, is merely to say, that it is not one of 
phenomena, that it has no final, sensible manifesta- 
tion. Certainly none of those who believe in the 
infinite suppose it ever to be of a phenomenal, that 
is of a definite, that is of a finite, nature. If the infi- 
nite were conceivable, it could not remain the infinite. 
If the existence of this notion is to be denied, because 
the infinite is inconceivable, the denial can have no 
force except on the ground that there are no ideas 
and no knowledge but those ideas and that knowl- 
edge which can lie in the forms of the imagination, 



270 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

which can come to us through the senses. But we 
offer the notion of the infinite as an intuitive idea, 
and it is no proof against it so urged, that it finds no 
entrance at the senses. This is exactly what we 
suppose and affirm concerniiog it, and assign it to a 
new faculty whose action is not i( covered by the word 
conceive. ic 

The affirmation of Spencer is oi the same nature, 
and rests on the same grounds. He, too, cannot im- 
agine, cannot conceive, the infinite ; and because it 
thus baffles him, he too labels it as an illegitimate, 
illusory notion. Here again is revealed the set and 
current of the old predetermination ; what the senses 
certify this shall find acceptance, what they reject 
this shall be rejected ; to them we commit the keys ; 
we plant them at the door, and they shall decide, and 
only they, who are to find admittance. Any ideas 
that seem actually to get in otherwise, are, in spite 
of all pretensions on their part, mere phantoms, vex- 
atious and troublesome, but not dangerous. Now 
the notion of the infinite, conceivable or inconceiv- 
able, substantial or illusory, is actually in the mind, 
and very busy there ; is present to the thoughts of 
Hamilton, of Mansel, of Spencer, and is very mettle- 
some there, otherwise why this continual war of 
brooms to drive it out ? Evidently it is like the 
nature of Horace, pitchforks may seem to expel it, 
but cannot hold the ground against it. These men 
have all talked much about something which they 
have called the infinite, and if now, according to their 
own confession, they do not know what it is, we are 
excused from giving any weight to what they have 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 2/1 

said ; and if they do know what it is that disturbs 
them, that fact destroys their argument — that those 
who reject the notion of the infinite should involve 
themselves in so obvious a dilemma as this, reveals 
at once the confusion and perplexity of their position. 
They confound the action of one faculty with another, 
and because the power to which they attributed a 
result is obviously too weak to yield it, they reject the 
result itself. They refuse to retrace their steps, and 
admit the existence of an intuitive action of mind, 
the source of the idea ; they prefer the bold, curt 
policy of striking down the obtrusive notion. 

One of the earlier directions in which the idea of 
the infinite would find application, one of the first 
objects of consideration by which it would be evoked, 
is that of space. Space is perfectly homogeneous. 
No definite or peculiar relations attach to one point 
in pure space more than to any other. What is true 
here, at this point, is true everywhere, and simple 
movement secures no change of conditions, no near- 
ness or remoteness, no approach to this side or de- 
parture from that. Now the thoughts dwelling for 
a little on the conception of space, discovers this 
absolute oneness, this perfect uniformity of conditions 
in it, this homogeneity in it everywhere, by which the 
words expressive of relation as above, below ; here, 
there ; to the right, to the left ; find no application. 
Hence they recognize the futility of all change of 
place as either penetrating or modifying space, and 
for this reason, also, the mind supplies the notion of 
the infinite as the ground or form of these facts. The 
infinite is to be carefully distinguished from the in- 



272 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

definite. A mathematical series may be indefinitely 
great, it is never infinitely great. The indefinite is 
simply that which transcends the mind's estimate, 
which wearies it out. Many so regard the infinite, 
as we think, very erroneously. The infinite is not 
begotten by the exhaustion of the imagination, it 
does not spring from simple weakness, it is not a 
conception on which the mind pillows itself in sheer 
fatigue, having added space to space in a fruitless 
effort to stretch a line of measurement from shore to 
shore of the infinite void. These are mere pranks 
and sports of the fancy in connection with a trans- 
cendental idea, coming to the mind from an entirely 
distinct quarter. We draw attention to the quickness 
and firmness of the thoughts in evoking and employ- 
ing this conception, when rightly directed. The pro- 
cess is as definite as the grasp of a mathematical 
truth. We know certainly and forever that two par- 
allel lines cannot enclose a space, we have but to 
direct the mind to two facts : first, the portions im- 
mediately before us do not, cannot, by conception 
approach each other ; second, these portions are an 
exact type and representation of all other portions. 
For a firm and final application of the notion of the 
infinite to space, we have a like occasion for two con- 
siderations only : first, the point we now occupy in 
space is central, equally remote from all bounds ; 
second, take any other point where we will, and its 
conditions are the precise equivalents of these ; hence 
the conclusion, space is infinite. It may indeed be 
truly said that the first step involves the entire result, 
yet the mind evolves it more distinctly by the two, 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 273 

and taking full hold of the two, settles the conclusion 
forever. 

Observe the great distinctness and firmness of the 
notion when the mind is once made familiar with it, 
has lost the strangeness of movement in a new field. 
No truth in mathematics rests on a stronger intuitive 
basis. It is strange that Hamilton or Mansel should 
lay any stress on the fact, that the mind cannot con- 
ceive, that is imagine, the infinite, since this must be, 
should be, the case. Moreover, how easily is this 
faculty baffled or indefinitely bothered by well-known 
phenomenal truths, properly subject to it, such as our 
relation to the earth's surface during its revolution on 
its axis. We seem now vertical on an upper, now 
pendant on a lower, now projecting on a perpendicular, 
surface. What a struggle with the imagination have 
some had in accepting this simple truth. Spencer is 
scarcely more correct in affirming the notion of the 
infinite to be utterly unthinkable, thrice unthinkable in 
relation, in difference, in likeness. This it admittedly 
is, if by thinking it is meant an identification of it in 
class and kind with other notions ; this it is not, if by 
thinkable is meant that which is capable of a clear 
and distinct service in thought, which can enter there 
as an original, and final element. No thinking is 
more complete to a thoroughly rational mind than 
that which calls forth from its own depths a recogni- 
tion of the necessary fact, that space is without limits. 

The infinite is also applicable in like manner to 

time, each point in turn being the exact counterpart 

of every other, yet only on this condition, that we 

consider time as one whole. It is not two infinites, 

12* 



274 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

but one infinite. This notion finds' a double applica- 
tion to God ; he is infinite in power, and he is infinite 
in knowledge. It is not fitting to say he is infinite 
in holiness, since perfect is the notion here pertinent. 
Holiness pertains to the agreement of action with a 
standard, not to the extent of action. 

In affirming God to be infinite in power and 
knowledge, we mean that there are neither external 
nor internal limits to his activities, other than those 
which belong to their very nature. All that is possi- 
ble to physical power is within the scope of his 
action ; all that is possible to mental activity, to 
knowledge, attaches to him as original and native 
strength. Knowledge, then, is meant to include the 
entire spiritual strength, and power the entire execu- 
tive force known to us as physical. Unlimited mas- 
tery in each direction is the prerogative of Deity. 
The infinite as applied to power does not alter the 
nature of power, does not make it capable of new 
results, but removes all limitations from it in quan- 
tity. Thus also is it in the several forms of mental 
activity gathered up in the word knowledge ; whether 
of an emotional or intellectual character, they are 
absolutely without the restriction of weakness or 
feebleness ; there are no limitations in them as activ- 
ities, though they may set limits to each other. The 
heart of God is not made weary by loving, nor the 
thought of God by devising. All degrees of the one 
and of the other are with him. 

Here again we are met, of course, by those who 
are wont to submit all intellectual products to the 
imagination, with the assertion, that we have an 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 275 

utterly incoherent conception, that the moment we 
attempt to realize it, it disappears in thin air ; that no 
power can be grasped by us except in some distinct, 
definite putting forth, and that so put forth, it at once 
sinks to the finite ; that no knowledge can be con- 
ceived by us, except as a restricted movement of 
mind in one direction, and that so conceived it is 
partial and limited. 

We simply respond, drive back the imagination, it 
is the hound that hunts behind the senses, that fol- 
lows an earthly trail, or bays the placid moon in sheer 
impotence. Why dog the stars with it ? What is it 
that leads us to affirm infinite power in God ? Not 
a precise, imaginative measurement of what he has 
done ; not a compounding in gigantic additions of the 
forces actually expended, but the conviction of the 
mind that nothing but an infinite nature, an abso- 
lutely independent one, can be an independent*source 
of force. But two positions are open to God, or to 
any being, that of the Creator or of the created, that 
of the conditioned or of the Unconditioned, and to be 
the Unconditioned one, is to be without limits in the 
forces which spring from him. All this reasoning, 
these concreations of the mind, which break ground 
for a new application of the notion of the infinite, do 
not spring from the imagination, do not come within 
its province, but leave it at labor in a field immeas- 
urably below, while the reason mounts up to the 
throne of God. 

Nor does this inconceivability of infinite power 
prevent our handling the idea in decisive and sat- 
isfactory forms, and including within it each manifes- 



2j6 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

tation of finite force. Space, as infinite, is incapable 
of division. Nothing can be added to it, nothing can 
be taken from it. Strictly speaking, there is no por- 
tion of space ; since this language would imply an 
entire or complete body of space, of which this re- 
stricted part was a portion. Yet this fact does not 
prevent our reaching most exact, mathematical results 
from considering the so-called portions of space, nor 
our empirically treating it in connection with matter 
under every form of dimension, relation, and measure- 
ment. Space holds snugly all extensions without 
modifying them or being modified by them ; while 
the one idea, in the furniture of thought, performs as 
important an office as the other, the infinite as the 
finite. Thus the powers of God gather up all finite, 
physical forces without being exhausted or defined by 
any one of them. We may as accurately, as safely, 
and with the same instruction, speak of the force of 
the whirlwind as a portion of the infinite power of 
God, and as a partial presentation of it, as we can of 
the area of a circle, as a portion of space, a measure- 
ment within it. The absolute homogeneity of space 
only makes every part of it a more complete type of 
every other ; the unity of all forces in God imparts 
something of the same representative power to each 
of them. 

Thus also is it with knowledge. When we affirm 
infinity of it, we do not mean to deny its character, 
or modify its actual form, but to remove outside re- 
straint, and inside feebleness from it. God's power 
is potential ; his knowledge may be potential as well. 
We are not to embarrass our thinking by striving to 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 277 

make this knowledge, in its manifestations, at once 
infinite and finite, by supposing it to include a definite 
act of attention to each separate thing, and an inclu- 
sive, constant, fixed attention to all things ; so that 
the eye cannot wink lest something be lost, nor the 
thought move lest something be left behind, but the 
one must gaze fixedly on, and the other hold motion- 
less in unchangeable reflection. We are rather, in 
imagination, to adhere to the form of the finite, and, 
in the reason, cast the infinite as the canopy of heaven 
over it, giving range and liberty to all its movements. 
Indeed, all that is highest, most potential in knowl- 
edge is not of the character indicated by this de- 
structive not constructive, this dead not living, con- 
ception of the Infinite. The more power we have, 
the more vigor of thought, the less is the mind bur- 
dened by its possessions, the less does it lapse into a 
painful holding on to things ready to elude it. Such 
a mind abides in perfect liberty in one thought, in 
one line of endeavor, with a quiet command of many 
others, a potential hold on all its resources. Is it not 
better to conceive, is it not philosophically more exact 
to handle, the power and knowledge of God as we 
actually find them, under a finite form with the sug- 
gestion of infinite scope, than to strive after them as 
they are nowhere presented under an infinite form ? 
All about us are the forces and thoughts which God 
employs, which come forth from his infinite resources, 
and why should we find any more difficulty in know- 
ing these for what they are, than they in being what 
they are ? If infinite power and knowledge do put 
forth limited products, cannot these products in turn 



2jS SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

put us in connection with infinite power and knowl- 
edge ? If the argument against the infinite is good 
for anything, it goes to the length of proving that all 
is finite, that rationality cannot recognize the infinite 
or the procession of the finite from it. What can be 
is certainly not beyond the scope of knowledge, and 
what cannot be known, actually or potentially, is so 
far impossible to being. 

The truth is, our knowledge strikes into two very 
different realms — the phenomenal and the unphenom- 
enal, our wisdom is to deny or to waste neither branch, 
but to allow the one more and more to interpret and 
expound the other, knowing that we grow into the 
invisible through the visible, the complete through 
the incomplete, the commanding spiritual intuition 
through a studious inquiry into the actual conditions, 
the physical or mental facts, which evoke it. Because 
the one is not the other, because matter is not mind, 
nor the language the thought, nor the symbol the 
very force of the sentiment, nor the marble statue 
the soul whose seat it seems to be, nor the finite 
world the Infinite Creator, it does not follow that 
each and all of them may not lift the mind truly, 
safely into the invisible region, whence they come 
down to us, and whose speech they proclaim to us. 
Indeed, in so many ways, by such slight connections, 
in each happy suggestion of look or sound or silence, 
through doors so often left ajar, we slip into the spir- 
itual world, that it becomes truly astonishing that the 
universe, with its deep vault of light, or its silent paths 
among the stars, is not a sufficiently royal way for us 
all to go up by to the throne of Infinite Power. 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 279 

We doubtless conceive God most exactly, when we 
conceive him most closely to the facts of our own 
experience, when we find him in most intimate re- 
lation to the works of his hands. The holiness of 
God, the chief of his characteristics, is known to us 
only in the reflection of our own moral natures. The 
actions of God are not forced upon us as right, they 
are commended to us as right, and the response we 
find to them in our ethical judgments, is, must be, 
the measure of our approval, and of the adoration we 
render to God. As a glass globe in the open air 
gathers in perfect and exquisite reflection the entire 
circle of the heavens above it, and the earth about 
and beneath it, so the soul of man, by its moral ca- 
pacities, stands in central, sympathetic connections 
with all purity and virtue, knows them as purity and 
virtue through a knowledge of itself, by the sphericity 
of its own nature. As a tinge of color in this reflect- 
ing medium, aids rather than mars the beauty, so the 
dark experiences of man in transgression does not pre- 
vent his hiding in his soul an image of heaven, nor the 
entrance of the moral glory of God by the avenue of 
his moral nature. What God does, is not good to us 
because he does it, but because within our own con- 
ceptions it presents itself as an action well done. 
The interpretation is from the soul, and we know 
God as God by the unity of our spirits with his. 
The struggle of virtue in the heart of the transgres- 
sor is the response of life to life, is one more effort of 
a prostrate, trampled plant to bend upward its grow- 
ing points to the light. 

If such are the conditions of likeness under which 



280 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

we approach the moral attributes of God, do we not 
look most wisely into his power, the nature and the 
range of it, when we find it in the things and the forces 
nearest to us, not when, under a false idea of exalting 
it, and striking from it finite limitations, we lift it 
into a region of abstractions, which are robbed of 
the glory of being, and have no answering glory of 
conception. 

What is the relation of God to space ? It is at 
once answered : He is omnipresent, and then steps 
in some philosopher to say, the notion of omnipres- 
ence is an inconceivable and illusory one, wherewith 
you beguile the thought, not instruct it. This seems 
to us true only on this condition, that setting our 
faculties at cross- purposes, we strive to handle in the 
imagination what belongs to the reason, and sublim- 
ate in the reason what is just nutriment and symbolic 
expression to the imagination. This we do on one 
side, when we strive definitely, that is under a phe- 
nomenal form, to conceive an omnipresent being, 
giving to the Almighty a shape that we may reach 
him in fancy, and instantly striking it off again, that 
he may not suffer its limitations, but still spread 
through and occupy all space ; this we do, on the 
other side, when, the senses and the imagination 
actually feasted on the glories of the visible world, 
we call in the reason to drive God out of that world, 
by the suggestion, this is finite, he is infinite ; this is 
conditioned, he is unconditioned. We are rather, as 
in language, to let the ear be delighted with the 
melody of the voice, and the soul to be fed on the 
thought. The finite is in the infinite, and of it. Let 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 28 1 

the imagination tarry here, as in the ante-chamber 
of Heaven ; there is an invisible fulness back of this, 
on which the reason casts quick, intuitive glances, 
though divested of all resemblance to things, of pre- 
cise and phenomenal form. The cloud is the gar- 
ment of God's majesty as much by the light it keeps 
back, as by that which breaks through it. 

Consciousness, the condition of spiritual existence, 
has no relation to space. Thought, as an act, is 
neither here nor there, and in its objects may move 
instantly anywhere. The only relation which mind 
has to locality is through the body. By means of it, 
the mind has a double connection with space. There 
is a very limited material circle which it pervades, 
and in many portions of which it can exercise an 
immediate, physical force. It has but to will to move 
the head, the hand, the foot, in order to shoot force 
through them, or through other members of the body. 
So far, it has a species of omnipresence within the 
body. If, now, matter in all its forms be but the force 
of God, God's will is as omnipresent to the entire ma- 
terial universe as my will to the tense muscle of my 
right arm. There is a broader circle than this from 
which forces, by means of the senses, the eye, the ear, 
reach the body, and pass by their effects into con- 
sciousness, consciousness without position or locality. 
May not every activity in the universe, God's own 
activity, come into his consciousness, without position 
or locality, fittingly termed omnipresent and omni- 
scient as necessarily feeling and knowing all that is ? 

Space has no independent being. It borrows its 
reality from the reality of that which it defines. It 



282 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

exists in the mirror, but dash the mirror and it is 
gone. It is present in the dream ; but awake from 
the dream, and it disappears. God's abiding activity 
in the external world gives abiding space, but sweep 
away all external objects, cancel the body, le.t thought 
alone remain, and where and what is space ? Con- 
sciousness, pure intellectual activity, finds no occasion 
for it, no region in which to locate it. Do not the 
forces of God, momentarily exercised in space, take 
omnipresent possession of it, give it being to our 
thoughts, and leave it, if he should withdraw his 
creations, ready to collapse like the times and places 
of a dream ? 

May not a like conception be applicable to time ? 
Time seems much less fixed and settled to us than 
space. Its dimensions contract and expand according 
to our varying experiences, till hours are transformed 
into minutes, and minutes drawn out into hours and 
days. We all know the effect of dreams, of intense 
pain, or of great danger on our impressions of time. 
Now what is it that holds apart, that gives length and 
measurement, to the surging years of eternity, but 
the events that are transpiring in them, the roll of 
suns, the sweep of planets, the coming forth and 
decay of life ? And how can we more worthily con- 
ceive of this varied and immeasurable activity than as 
the transient activity of God, as the form in which 
his power is momentarily expressing itself ; the phase 
his life is taking upon itself, putting phenomenally 
forth from itself? Is it not better to conceive of God's 
movable, flexible, spontaneous life, as passing down 
through the eternities, taking successive possession 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 283 

of them, making them what they are, than to strive, 
against all laws of thought, to lock it up, we know 
not where or when, in some steadfast gaze of omni- 
science ? Indeed, what is omniscience, but a know- 
ing of all that has been, is, or may be ? and what are 
the eternities but the stretch of time through which 
God has rolled his activity, made in their length by 
the slow, if you so regard it, or rapid, if you so regard 
it, evolution of his plans ? Where is the time of my 
vision, its events removed? Where the time in 
which we enclose the eternal years of God, the dis- 
tending events of his universe, the thoughts of his 
mind, being swept away ? It has vanished like the 
bubble overblown, like the dream from which we have 
waked. 

I may be asked, What is the worth of such con- 
ceptions ? you cannot propose to urge them upon 
others as final. Their worth is very great to any soul 
that wishes them, who can use them in driving back 
those dead conceptions of the universe, which make 
of it a machine, mere matter ; and those remote illu- 
sory notions of God, which hide him away totafly 
outside of, and backside of, his creation, and finally 
forget him altogether. They are thrown out as ways 
of helping us to find God very near to us, as notions 
every way more accurate and more inspiring than 
those which they displace. Says Martineau — and we 
cannot again avail ourselves of his thoughts without 
expressing our admiration of the penetration and 
scope of his powers — " Indeed this mechanical met- 
aphor, so skilfully elaborated by Paley, appears to be 
of all representations of the divine nature, the least 



284 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

religious: its very clearness proclaiming its insuffi- 
ciency for those affections which seek, not the finite, 
but the infinite ; its coldness repelling all emotions, 
and reducing them to physiological admiration ; and 
its scientific procedure presenting the Creator to us 
in a relation quite too mean, as one of the causes in 
creation, to whom a chapter might be devoted in any 
treatise on dynamics ; and on evidence quite below 
the real, as a highly probable God. The true natural 
language of devotion speaks out rather in the poetry 
of the Psalmist and the prayers of Christ ; declares 
the living contact of the Divine Spirit with the 
human, the mystic implication of his nature with ours, 
and ours with his ; his serenity amid our griefs, his 
sanctity amid our guilt, his wakefulness in our sleep, 
his life through our death, his silence amid our stormy 
force ; and refers to him as the Absolute basis of all 
relative existence ; all else being in comparison but 
phantasm and shadow, and he alone the Real and 
Essential Life." 

How plain is it, that a God so conceived, conceived 
evidently as he would have us conceive him, since, on 
the one hand, he gives us the universe through which 
to approach him, and on the other, supplements it 
with the assertion of his infinite, spiritual, and inap- 
proachable nature, thus keeping us in the path of 
light by the nice equipoise of contradictions ; how 
plain is it that such a faith, and such a faith only, 
subserves the purposes of a rational life. There is 
given us here, that which we may know, and will 
know, and increasingly know ; and there, that which 
provokes inquiry, keeps the edge of appetite good, 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 285 

and ever stretches beyond our thought. Every re- 
ligion that has had any hold on the human mind, has 
had its mysteries, its shekinahs, answering to these 
deep things of God ; and has also had its rites, pre- 
cepts, and outer courts. Rob religion of that which 
is incomprehensible, which cannot be found out to 
perfection, which refuses to subject itself to the exact 
conditions of time, place and circumstances, and you 
strip it of its transcendental truth, its infinite scope, 
its lifting power ; take from it its true, simple, sym- 
bolic knowledge, its near approach to God, its outer 
courts wherein the masses may throng to his worship, 
and your whole religious faith passes, like a balloon, 
into the cold upper air ; the eyes of men will soon 
cease to follow it, and return again to familiar things. 
" It is of such mental strife with the mysterious, 
which uses up our knowledge and lets us fall upon 
our conscious ignorance, that religion has its birth. 
The perpetual renewal of this controversy maintains 
the soul in that intermediate state between the known 
and the incomprehensible, the finite and the infinite, 
which excludes as well the dogmatism of certainty as 
the apathy of nescience and chance, and calls up that 
wonder, reverence, and trust, which are the fitting 
attributes of our nature." 

Observe the deep foundations of rationality, on 
which the Christian faith, combining the known and 
the unknown, the finite and the infinite, the incarnate 
and the invisible rests. How it lays hold of all emo- 
tions of the heart ! How it engages, quickens, ex- 
pands the thoughts ! How it strengthens the soul ! 
How it strikes deep down and far back into history 



286 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

for the reasons and grounds and forms of its pres- 
ence ! How it draws to it remote races and distant 
times, and the deep-seated forces of our common 
life ! Says Max Midler, " The elements and sorts of 
religion were then as far back as we can trace the 
history of man : and the history of religion, like the 
history of language, shows us throughout a succes- 
sion of new combinations of the same radical ele- 
ments. An intuition of God, a sense of human 
weakness and dependence, a belief in a Divine gov- 
ernment of the world, a distinction between good and 
evil, and a hope of a better life — these are some ol 
the radical elements of all religions. Though some- 
times hidden, they rise again and again to the sur- 
face. Though frequently distorted, they tend again 
and again to their perfect form. Unless they had 
formed a part of the original dowry of the human 
soul, religion itself would have remained an impossi- 
bility, and the tongues of angels would have been to 
human ears but as sounding brass or a tinkling cym- 
bal." 

A faith so reposing, a conception of the Infinite 
and his government so grounded, are like the great 
mountains that hide their roots in darkness and 
their summits in light, but yield broad and fertile 
slopes on which many may live, up which they may 
ascend, at each step gathering a broader view, and 
possessed by a deeper inspiration. At times indeed, 
to the over-speculative, the too little trusting mind, 
the clouds that hover round their peaks may descend, 
and envelope the entire landscape, and the unbeliever 
may ask, Where now are your heaven-ascending 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. 287 

summits ? Born of the mist, they are swallowed up 
of the mist. But he that can abide a little in faith, 
shall see the birth of new and unusual glories, when 
clefts appear in the riven clouds, and they flee apace 
before the winds that strike through them, and the 
light that drinks them up, till, their dim, despairing 
aspect all gone, and made to share the victory of the 
day, they linger, of things ethereal themselves the 
most ethereal. The difficulties of reason, left high 
and remote, are masses of effulgent clouds ; brought 
down about us, and sensually scrutinized, they are 
cold fog-winds, that drearily extinguish our comforts, 
and one by one quench our hopes. 



LECTURE XII. 

CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE : FORM OF DEVEL- 
OPMENT. 

We now approach the end of our labor, and should 
find some new light to have been cast by it upon the 
relations of science and religion to mental philosophy. 
Is it not plain, that the tendency increasingly shown 
to term mental science, philosophy, peculiarly and 
preeminently philosophy, is correct ; that an appre- 
hension of mind, its faculties and laws, stands central 
in knowledge, and determines its forms and limits in 
all directions ; that science on this side and religion 
on that, must receive thence the form of their truths, 
their relations to other truths, and the final grounds 
of their validity ? 

All darkness and confusion, therefore, which the 
prejudices of the present time shall allow to steal into 
the department of philosophy, must be greatly disas- 
trous, loosening the central connections of thought, 
disintegrating knowledge, wasting portions, and allow- 
ing other portions, like rebellious provinces, to cast 
off the organic laws of the kingdom of truth, and to 
issue their own limited edicts in their place. The 
mind must mount to a knowledge, a correct and com- 
plete knowledge, of its own faculties, their scope and 
authority, and, from this central eminence, lay out the 
fields of exploration around it. 

In the first place, it sets this limit to physical sci- 



CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE, ETC. 289 

ence ; that it belongs to physical things and events 
which appear in space, and arise under the notion of 
causation. These inquiries have, therefore, perfectly 
definite, perfectly firm and invariable connections. 
Here, science may boast of its "immutable, unchange- 
able, eternal laws ; " may bind down all events to them, ■ 
and delight to inquire into the kind, order and depend- 
encies of that class of facts which arise under them. 

Philosophy reserves for itself an equally distinct 
field, that of consciousness, in whose events the notion 
of space finds no application, and whose interior law 
is that of spontaneity and liberty. But besides these 
two departments of empirical knowledge, of actual 
things, there is another of pure conceptions. It arises 
from the unfolding by the mind of its own intuitions, 
and lies in the region of abstract transcendental truth. 
Thus the conceptions of space are expanded into 
geometry, and judgments, under the notion of iden- 
tity, into logic. 

These are the three primary directions of thought : 
space in its physical facts ; consciousness in its men- 
tal facts ; abstract truths without actual, phenomenal 
being. We are thus ready for a classification of 
knowledge, and to indicate the ruling conception in 
each separate science. By science is meant a form 
of knowing which approaches completeness and ful- 
ness ; and by a science, a given department of knowl- 
edge, so explored and explained. There is no fixed 
limit between that degree of knowledge which consti- 
tutes a science, and that inferior degree which remains 
unworthy of the name. 

The first division of knowledge is into the Intuitive 



29O SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

Sciences and the Empirical Sciences : those which 
do not pertain to real being, and those which do. 
The Intuitive Sciences are again divisible into the 
Pure and the Impure. The Pure Sciences rest wholly 
on intuitions, give laws to facts, and receive no laws 
from them ; are discussed independently of them. 
Of this class, are Pure Mathematics and Deductive 
Logic. To the second class of Impure Intuitive 
Sciences, belong Applied Mathematics, Ontology, 
Esthetics and Ethics. These, each of them, deal with 
facts, but deal ^with them not as facts merely, but 
under intuitive relations which the mind imposes 
upon them. Let the facts be fixed, hypothetically or 
actually, and demonstration enters here as in the 
pure sciences ; that is, the reason sees the conclusion 
to be contained necessarily in the premises. 

The Empirical Sciences fall into Intellectual and 
Physical. The Intellectual Sciences are sub-divided 
into Mental and Social Sciences. The Social Sci- 
ences are further divisible into those of History, 
Language and Political Economy. 

The Physical Sciences contain three classes ; those 
of elements ; those of compounds, inorganic and 
organic ; those of interactions. 

The first of these treat of primary, elementary 
forces ; the second, of the separate products of these 
forces ; and the third, of the complex conditions of 
action and reaction in the different departments in 
which these exist together. To the first class, that 
of elements or elementary forces, belong Chemistry 
and Physics. To the second, of organic and inor- 
ganic forces, belong Mineralogy, Botany and Zoology. 



CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE, ETC. 



29I 



To the third, of interaction, belong Geology, Meteor- 
ology and Physical Geography. 

We subjoin a table expressing these relations and 
containing the leading, regulative idea or ideas of 
each science. Of course, other ideas enter in con- 
stantly, but the ones indicated give character to the 
respective branches. 



Intuitive 
Science. 



Empirical 
Science. 



Pure. 



Impure. 



Intellectual. 



Physical. 



Mental. 



Social. 



Of Elements 

or 

Elementary 

Forces. 

Of Inorganic 

and 

Organic 

Forms. 



Mathematics. 
Logic. 

Mixed Mathematics. 

Ontology. 

^Esthetics. 

Ethics. 

Science of Mind. 

Language. 

History. 

Political Economy. 



Physics. 
Chemistry. 



Mineralogy. 
Botany. 
Zoology. 



Geology. 
Of Physical Geography. 

Interactions, j Meteorology. 
Physiology. 



Space and 

Number. 

Resemblance 

as 

Identity. 

Resemblance 
as 
Identity. 
Causation. 
Beauty. 
Right. 

Resemblance. 

Resemblance. 



Causation. 



Resemblance. 



Causation. 



We now pass to the relation of Philosophy to re- 
ligion. It discloses the basis of religion in our con- 
stitution ; the source and soundness of those concep- 
tions on which it rests. These are, first, that of the 
infinite in its personal form, and second, those of 
liberty and right. Without these ideas firmly es- 



292 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

tablished, and practically believed in, we can have no 
belief in God, or in duties owed to him. Philosophy, 
therefore, settles the foundations, not less of religion 
than of science, and shows it incorporate in our first 
constitution. So true is this, that in our scheme of 
knowledge, we need no distinct department as that of 
theology. The being of a God pertains to Ontology. 
The facts of Revelation have arisen historically, and 
the precepts of religion are those of our moral nature. 
Theology, therefore, is simply gathering together, 
into one presentation for practical ends, what per- 
tains to many departments of knowledge. The as- 
sertion, that religion rests wholly on our mental con- 
stitution for the nature and fitness of its claims, is 
displeasing to some minds, but we think* chiefly, 
because its bearings are not fully understood. It 
seems to them to set human reason above Divine 
reason, Philosophy above Revelation. This, at first 
flash may appear to be the force of the statement, 
but is not its real character. God has placed the 
seal of his authority on our very constitution, on our 
rational and moral faculties themselves, and not upon 
any external parchment or revelation as alien to these 
faculties, or foreign, in its claims, to conscience. His 
law is written in the heart ; indeed, as a moral law, it 
can be written no otherwise. Commands are of no 
avail, except as they are, first, understood, and of no 
moral avail except, second, as their force and fitness 
are felt, that is, responded to from within. No in- 
junctions can be laid upon any but an intelligent 
being, and no religious injunction upon any but a 
moral being ; since otherwise laid, they find no echo 



CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE, ETC. 293 

in the soul, get no hold of it. We must have ears to 
talk to, eyes to present colors to, consciences on 
which to lay claims. God's government goes far 
deeper than the precept : it springs up in the rational, 
moral sense which explains and justifies the precept. 
It were vain that religion is both rational and right, if 
men were not able to discern that which is rational and 
recognize that which is right. God first establishes 
the human reason, the ethical sense, and by these, 
establishes his commands. His throne is set up 
in our nature, as to the conditions and reason of 
its authority, not elsewhere. This shows us why 
his kingdom tarries. He is struggling to correct 
that reason, and redirect that moral nature, that 
have partially lost their hold on the truth, and thus 
allowed the foundations of his government to give 
way. It is not on irrationality but rationality ; it is 
not on strength but righteousness that God builds ; 
and reason and right have no existence for any soul 
except as disclosed to it by its own action. 

God has given us those powers which constitute 
us free, reasonable beings, and all his commands, all 
our relations to him, all his methods of dealing with 
us, depend for their fitness on the nature of those 
powers ; and thus a correct knowledge of them, a 
correct philosophy, is necessary to the construction of 
a correct theology. If we are free, sin is one thing ; 
if we are not, it is a very different thing. If we are 
able to apprehend the law of right as a primitive in- 
tuition, the law of virtue is one thing ; if we are not, 
it is quite another. The language which God ad- 
dresses to us is as much to be explained by a knowl- 



294 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

edge of our nature, as the language I address to a 
dog is to be understood by a knowledge of its nature. 
It does not set human reason above the divine reason, 
because by the first only do we understand and ex- 
plain the last. The pupil is not above the teacher, 
because he enters into, and explains by his own 
thoughts, the thoughts of the teacher. It is a very 
awkward and weak government which rests on 
strength, compared with that which rules in the very 
mind and heart, and is able to divide the man against 
himself in every act of disobedience, and make the 
last appeal to the conscience of the criminal. 

We see but one danger to be guarded against in 
this statement, and that is this : Because the exist- 
ence of God and the rightfulness of his government 
are disclosed to us in our own moral nature, and his 
commands meet with their final enforcement there, 
it does not follow that each revealed truth and specific 
precept will be at once and thoroughly apprehended 
by us, or that we shall be at liberty to set it uncere- 
moniously aside when it fails to disclose its intrinsic 
light. The reason and the conscience inquire into 
all things, not less scientific than revealed truths, 
under this condition of partial ignorance, and a qual- 
ified acceptance of what they do not comprehend. 
The authority of reason is not thereby lost ; we are 
only bidden by reason itself to wait for a final adjust- 
ment on further inquiry. Conscience may sanction 
a command of God, as a command of God, without 
seeing its precise grounds ; and in doing this, is as 
rational, and as dependent on reason, as is the travel- 
ler in committing himself to a guide. The assertion 



CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE, ETC. 295 

remains true, fully true, we are built into the moral 
government of God, and a knowledge of him, solely 
by our rational and moral nature. We are rational 
and moral first, and religious afterward ; that is, the 
first capabilities involve the second, and give law to 
them. We are what we are, first by the creative 
work of God ; second, by his redemptive work under, 
and in completion of, his first work. To decry the 
reason of man, is to decry God, its author, and to put . 
out the very eyes, by which we wait on him, into 
which he pours the light of his truth, and the smile 
of his benignity. It is not philosophy, but philosophy 
falsely so called, that we are to fear ; it is not the 
wise man but the fool, who says in his heart, " There 
is no God." 

By the relation now pointed out between science, 
philosophy and religion, by which the one stands 
midway between the other two, and gives them the 
ideas under which they proceed, we are able to see 
a reason for the order which individual and social 
growth have assumed. That the progress of society 
as a whole should agree in its leading stages with that 
which more frequently falls to the individual in the 
development of his own intellectual life, is inevitable. 
The earlier periods of a nation, or of nations — as they 
have often so influenced each other intellectually as 
to make of their conjoint periods a continuous 
advance in thought— is necessarily made up in the 
great bulk of its population of individuals in the first 
stages of progress, while its subsequent and its later 
periods are respectively marked by a steady increase 
of those in an advanced development. Hence, the 



296 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

life of the nation is a prolonged counterpart of that 
of the individual ; and the history of nations, as con- 
jointly bearing on civilization, a second counterpart 
of the included units of growth. This is true, how- 
ever, with an important exception : the individual is 
mortal, and the nation as well hitherto, while nations 
are able to take up the march in endless succession. 
Each of these, which are truly historic, which are the 
fighting corps in the army of progress, and not mere 
hangers-on, cannot fail at once to participate in the 
past, and break new ground in the future. 

The individual mind, the child, starts with un- 
bounded faith in personal powers, not so much in his 
own, as in those of his parents, in those of the men 
and the women above and about him. The boy in- 
terprets everything to himself on the side of sponta- 
neity, of individual strength. The heroes of fiction 
and of history are all in all to him. They handle and 
wield to his fancy all the forces about them. In con- 
nection with this delight in personal prowess, this pre- 
dominance of the free, individual element, the mind 
readily accepts the presence of spiritual agencies, 
divine and malign : indeed, gigantic human strength, 
super-human achievements and mythological beings 
all blend together as equally accepted parts of one 
unanalyzed picture. The religious element, there- 
fore, is favored in youth by this predominance of the 
intuitions on which it rests, by this sense of liberty, 
and the weight of purely personal powers. Later, 
the control of the mind over its creations impresses 
itself on the enlarged apprehension. Pure mathe- 
matics, a solid crystal of simple thought, and, like a 



CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE, ETC. 297 

fitly-shaped lens, bringing strange magnitudes and 
novel presentations to many practical subjects, to 
astronomy, optics, mechanics, lay strong hold of the 
intellect, and present it as furnishing and shaping its 
own instruments, and using them most efficiently on 
the material before it, waiting to be inquired into, *. 
and thus fashioned into knowledge. The personal 
element, therefore, still retains possession of the 
mind, though in a somewhat less wayward and irre- 
sponsible form. 

It is not till the natural sciences come to possess 
an absorbing interest, not till a sense of the independ- 
ent force and order in the world about us is strongly 
impressed on the mind, that it begins slowly, and 
somewhat reluctantly perhaps to take up the impres- 
sion, that it is lapped by laws and powers hoary with 
years beyond its conception, broad, deep, high, strong ; 
with a force to which its own is insignificant, roll- 
ing on, a resistless flood, along a channel whose 
bed is never dry, whose current knows no pause nor 
abatement. Now the mind is ready to swing wholly 
over from its former position ; to regard the liberty 
with which it delighted itself as a mere delusion ; the 
power which it vaunted, as a child's infatuation. It 
now becomes its chosen wisdom simply to see the 
forces about it, to go with them, and escape the ruin 
of resistance. Religion and religious ideas appear 
remote and shadowy, or disappear altogether. The 
material universe, too strong, far too strong for the 
human soul, soon presents itself as strong, very 
strong for the handling even of a divine agent, 
and spirits and spiritual powers of all forms and 
13* 



298 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

grades are soon left, blind Sampsons, to grind in this 
magnificent mill, which can, by all their strength, be 
revolved in one way, and for one end only. 

From this final phase of the mind in its progress 
through partial and incomplete forms of knowledge, 
there is no return to strength and the composure of* 
balanced powers and compensatory considerations, 
but by true, sound philosophy. Or, rather, such a 
philosophy should have anticipated this unseating of 
the mind from its central pivot, and left it still free to 
vibrate under every attraction, returning steadily to 
the polar point of personal strength. Let the mind 
rise a little above this stream of forces ; let it find in 
them one more magnificent display of personal, of 
divine power ; let it discern the truly spiritual influ- 
ences that momentarily play down upon them, both 
from itself, and the great army, rank within rank, of 
lives that use them ; and its equipoise is restored to 
it. Religion comes back upon it with new signifi- 
cance, and it finds that it has climbed this exceedingly 
high mountain, not so much to see all the kingdoms 
of the earth and the glory of them, as to catch over 
and beyond them all, a more exalted view of the 
Kingdom of Heaven. 

The progress of the individual is more frequently 
by points, by separation, by analysis, than by synthe- 
sis ; and thus it is ever assuming a one-sided and 
disproportionate appearance ; is ever looking towards 
something less complete than its own normal life. 
As it is said of embryonic growth, that it takes on 
forms which belong to lower kinds of life, and through 
these slowly approaches its own, its higher type, so 



CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE, ETC. 299 

the mind accepts successive and partial phases of 
truth, and learns but slowly to unite them into a 
symmetrical, a completely developed, whole. We 
come to a knowledge of ourselves, as we study or- 
ganic beings, destructively ; we separate the bones, 
we pull apart the muscles, we dissect out the arteries, 
we pursue the nerves to their lodgment. The mech- 
anism of the parts we at length understand, but 
the whole as a whole, its unity, its mystery, its life, 
escape us, and are to be reached again only by a 
pause : by regarding our dissection as all undone, 
and by standing silently in the silent presence of 
that life which fled before our busy fingers com- 
menced their labor, and which they have now ban- 
ished even from our thoughts. 

The general order of development as enforced by 
the disciples of the positive philosophy, is that which 
corresponds to the one we have presented in the 
individual mind. They speak of a theological age, 
of a- metaphysical age, and, last of all, of the age of 
positive knowledge. Of course, no age presents a 
phase of development, pure and distinct, but is what 
it is by predominant tendencies. The theological 
age is one in which personal elements have free, 
undisputed supremacy, and, therefore, in which the 
natural has no advantage, in men's thoughts, over the 
supernatural ; the two have not fallen apart, and do 
not present different claims. Thought has not be- 
come distinct and thoughtful, and it uses the regula- 
tive idea nearest to it somewhat at random. In 
the metaphysical age, thought has become more 
severe, more logical. Indeed, logic, strictly so called, 



300 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

has become the study of the mind, and its chief 
weapon. It still thoroughly believes in itself, and, by 
the fixed laws of evolution, expects, in its own judg- 
ments, from its own fruitful conceptions, to build up 
a consecutive and universal frame-work of knowl- 
edge. In this period, much is accomplished, and 
much is failed of, while religious ideas have still 
universal hold on the mind. 

Later comes the millenium of science, in which 
man wakes up to find a world outside of himself, and 
to the fact that its laws are to be discovered, not in- 
vented ; its phenomena observed, not fancied. The 
mind now descends from its high pitch, and hunts 
bugs where bugs are to be found. At this point, 
positive philosophy steps in exultant ; claims this 
result as its own ; fearlessly asserts that mind is but 
a big maw for the digestion of this sort of facts ; 
that hitherto it has only thriven on wind, and now, 
for the first time, has found its true feeding fields. 
Some, with fatalistic folly, resign themselves to this 
interpretation, and think it a magnificent thing to 
rummage the world over, to cast up its soil, pry into 
its secret places, and entertain those messengers that 
come to us from the silent spaces above, and all for 
a fact, which is to be used finally as mere food to the 
belly. No inspirations are brought to the spirit, no 
consolations are whispered into its heavy ears. This 
might do, had we not come down from a throne, and 
could we not easily climb back to it ; had we not 
ruled in nature, and might not rule there again. It 
is something to hold knowledge as a mirror embra- 
ces its objects in passive reflection, but it . is far 



CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE, ETC. 301 

more to see for use, and to use for immortality ; to 
bring interpretation to what we behold, and to find, 
by this interpretation, our spirits knit in a kindred 
of thoughts and purposes to the great Architect of 
all. 

We accept the three periods of positive philosophy, 
each partial phases of thought, all to be gathered up 
in their results as the mind advances to a higher 
plane of activity, and collects its gains for a new 
outlay. We merely refuse to accept the last and 
extreme position as final, as most truthful of all ; yea, 
the only truthful one. The pendulum pauses but an 
instant at the end of the arc, and impels the hours 
by a new vibration. Passing through science back 
again to philosophy and religion, we shall still find 
the world ready to strike off our march on the dial- 
plate of progress, as the race climbs the morning 
slope toward its zenith of strength. 

If our view thus far is correct, it is plain that there 
are no fixed, established lines of development which 
society must follow, whether it will or no. Spencer 
may trace, as he pleases, the passage of the homoge- 
neous into the heterogeneous ; the slow adjustment 
of life to its external conditions, he only engineers 
roads which the race may or may not travel. If it 
travels at all in the direction he proposes, it must, it 
is true, accept the general route indicated, as there is 
no other : but as in man the ruling element of life is 
a moral one, all other conditions of progress must be 
determined by it, and it is as possible for a nation to 
degenerate as to advance. Indeed, the world has as 
often presented the one spectacle as the other. The 



302 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

great mill-wheel cannot be clogged, and minor ones 
revolve successfully. The ends for which man puts 
his powers to work will always have a moral charac- 
ter, will always set in operation moral laws, moral 
forces, for his encouragement or his overthrow ; for 
his establishment or his retribution ; and thus the 
individual and the nation will finally find the moral 
government too strong for them ; that the very rap- 
idity of its immoral prosperity causes a people first 
to be proud, then tyrannical, then enervate — to part, 
like an over-driven wheel, into a hundred fragments, 
and to pass into the chaos of a shipwrecked nation- 
ality, to become like old iron, waiting at the furnace 
door, new moulds and new uses. 

How wholly mistaken is the statement of Buckle, 
that intellectual forces are the efficient forces in pro- 
gress : that the moral element is every way secondary. 
Not till intellectual elements have resolved themselves 
into moral elements, do they effect progress at all. 
Not till they instruct men how to live and for what 
to live, do they influence life, and, teaching life in its 
form and substance, they become fully moral ; they 
prosper or retard it in the degree in which they throw 
it into harmony with a universe ruled under and for 
moral ends. 

The primary, the fundamental principles in the 
discussion of social and historical questions, of the 
hopes and possibilities of the race, must be found in 
philosophy, which underlies them. Does mind rule 
in and over matter, then the natural and the super- 
natural, the physical and the spiritual will harmoni- 
ously unite in true, in real progress. Is matter the 



CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE, ETC. 303 

one seat, the sole seat of force ? then progress will 
be either certain or impossible ; will either care for 
itself, or need not be cared for at all. The questions 
of human interest can be handled on no common 
ground by a materialist and a realist : neither history 
nor society, things present, past, nor to come, can 
receive from them a kindred interpretation. They 
read the cipher with a different key, and everywhere 
conflicting results follow. The foundations of philos- 
ophy must be laid, or it is useless to lay any other 
foundations, or institute any other inquiries, save into 
simple, visible facts as facts. Begin in any direction 
to knit them together, and discrepancies and difficul- 
ties at once appear. 

All systems of thought of social and ethical bear- 
ings, that are truly coherent and symmetrical, can be 
tested in their truth only by an examination of the 
fundamental principles on which they rest. Many 
minds are able with adroitness and logical skill to 
evolve a few first truths into an entire system, which 
cannot be treated successfully by an inquiry into the 
details of its structure, but only by a return once more 
to its initiatory and germinant ideas. Thus the phi- 
losophy of Herbert Spencer; his First Principles, his 
Psychology, his Biology, are exerting a great influ- 
ence ; and, while they carry with them many truths 
and much instruction, they are, in ethical and religious 
departments, most destructive and disastrous. Their 
evil influences are indeed restricted by two facts : 
many of those who are ready to accept their conclu- 
sions, do not apprehend all of their bearings, and thus 
easily endorse premises, from whose ultimate liabilities 



304 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION. 

they would draw back in alarm. Men are too illogical 
to suffer all the evil of their opinions, as well as to re- 
alize all the good that they contain. Yet, what men 
fail to do at once and consistently, time is likely to 
accomplish slowly. The mere jolt of motion shows 
a good deal of arranging power in loose material, and 
thus a slow separation takes place in opinions. The 
evil that is in them will not be still, and at length 
falls into genial soil. There it germinates, and soon 
a rank growth of mischief overshadows and rots 
away the remainder of sound thought. 

A second protection, of much the same nature, is, 
that few really grasp and accept an unsound philoso- 
phy. Their native convictions are too strong for it. 
They do not, they cannot discard the ordinary con- 
nections of thought, and they use philosophy as a 
mere flag to unfurl on convenient occasions, to afford 
character and give nominal protection. It is gener- 
ally certain practical tendencies, certain corollaries, 
which bear on daily life, that incline the most of those 
minds, that are but semi-philosophical, to accept one 
system rather than another. They choose philoso- 
phies as one chooses climates, for the comforts they 
yield, and they inquire or care for little beyond this. 

For this and like reasons, philosophy never does at 
once anything like either as much good, or as much 
evil, as it is in it to do. It is not a contagion, but a 
constitutional force, that must show itself in succes- 
sive generations before its real power and nature are 
discoverable. Yet, what it loses in time it makes up 
in strength and intensity, when it has once planted 
itself among the central forces of life, and commenced 



CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE, ETC. 305 

their protracted government for good or for evil. 
Such a philosophy as that of the First Principles 
may find easy admission, with its brilliant and popu- 
lar intellectual power ; its last and fatal deductions 
may be made but slowly. Yet, for these reasons, it 
is, by the reflective mind, only the more feared. 

The sagacious reformer works for the next gener- 
ation more than for his own, and is especially fearful 
of those forces, whose fruits of mischief are still hid- 
den in them. The rotten-ripe sins of the world are 
those least dangerous. Yet it is an utterly inade- 
quate and unsatisfactory treatment of such works 
as those of Spencer, to blow against them a swarm 
of petty criticisms. They are too compactly con- 
structed, too consistent with themselves, to be af- 
fected by minor measures. They are, in their lead- 
ing drift either greatly right or greatly wrong, and 
which it is must be determined by the key of the posi- 
tion, the psychology. In a satisfactory attack, there- 
fore, there is at once sprung upon us a most difficult 
and recondite labor, and one in which very few can 
engage, or which they can observe. It is not easy 
to find another book, so coherent, so clear, so subtile, 
so abstruse, and, at the same time, so fatally erroneous 
and mischievous as Spencer's Principles of Psychol- 
ogy. This fortress must be carried, this ground 
swept, or those many and far-reaching outposts which 
"rest upon it cannot be captured. Philosophy must 
be called to its own defence, and the defence of re- 
ligion, or its best possessions will be lost, and the 
protection which it now gives to ethical truth, be 
wholly sacrificed. 



306 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

No fact in the progress of knowledge, more evinces 
the relations of philosophy to religion than the results 
of Hume's criticism on miracles. This criticism is 
and was unanswerable on the basis of the Lockean 
philosophy then prevalent. Hume was far too pow- 
erful for most of his assailants, and, even to our own 
time, rejoinders have been made, which utterly failed 
to apprehend the discussion and were altogether 
worthless. They were mud balls flung at monu- 
mental granite. They might disguise its lettering 
from the careless passer-by, but could do nothing 
toward effacing it. It was not till this destructive 
criticism forced into existence a new philosophy, a 
German and a Scotch school, that it began to give 
ground. Thus ever will philosophy show itself to be 
the citadel of truth, of which every religious, social 
and scientific position even, are but out-posts. 

We have, therefore, always, reluctantly or other- 
wise, before the final issue of any intellectual strug- 
gle, to gird ourselves up for philosophy. 

Starting with a defence of philosophy, and closing, 
in view of all its relations, with a further enforcement 
of its necessity, there are two other considerations 
which we wish to present in their bearings on this 
topic. Every system gathers strength for the mind 
whose it is, by the mere fact of familiarity. All beliefs, 
true and erroneous are open to the same liability. 
The simple fact, that they have long been held by the 
mind, gives them great power over it. Thought 
takes on itself habit, feels the ease of familiar pro- 
cesses, the strangeness of new conclusions, slides 
readily on old ways, and accepts new principles with 



CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE, ETC. 307 

hesitation and reluctance. The advanced theorist 
may urge this fact as an objection against the staid 
beliefs of the past, may intimate that their chief 
strength lies in their prescriptive hold upon the mind, 
that it is mere inertia that keeps them in their places ; 
yet every attack which he makes under his own faith, 
every defence of it which he enters on, tend to exactly 
the same result in his own belief, till much of his con- 
viction, his settled firmness of faith, is only another 
name for familiarity ; is the result of beating hard the 
path of thought by repeatedly travelling it. All par- 
ties, therefore, who are really in search of the truth, 
require the same caution to avoid the unbelief of mere 
ignorance, the credulity of constant credence. 

Our own customs are to us excellent, our own 
thoughts sound, our own feelings natural by familiar- 
ity. Every mind, therefore, requires, from time to 
time, a violent upheaval, an earnest effort to look 
afresh at truth, and to allow an unbiased judgment to 
reach anew its conclusions. The needle, too cohesive, 
must be again poised, again set in light fluctuation 
under every magnetic current. Doubtless, to those 
who have tarried long in one field, the truths of every 
other seem vague, remote, often untenable. 

Another like fact is, that every mind tends to exclu- 
sion, to concentration, to the evolution of favorite 
conceptions. This is inevitable from its mere finite- 
ness, and grateful from the pleasing unity and the 
apparent triumphs so given to its labors. It seems 
to be a fancy that now possesses the scientific mind, 
that absolute identity, complete oneness, is to be more 
and more approached in the laws of the universe, 



308 SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

and in its forces. Harmony, symmetry, perfect inter- 
action of manifold things, are passing over into the 
more barren conception of a diversified presentation 
of one or more central forces ; a necessary evolution, 
according to one and the same law, of all forms of 
force. The point of difference lies as to the depth of 
the diversities, the disagreements, when compared 
with agreements. Do we start with the absolutely 
homogeneous, or with irreconcilable differences, crea- 
tion shooting out new lines from distinct points at 
the very outsets. The one conception favors a me- 
chanical universe, referring all distinctions to posi- 
tion ; and the other a vital one, one of infinite 
diversity and fulness. The very force of this desire 
after an artificial unity which must at once escape 
again into an inexplicable variety, we believe to rest 
on the gravitation of the mind toward the familiar, 
towards its own mechanical arrangement and hand- 
ling of forces. Yet is not this tendency of the mind 
toward the universal application of one conception, 
the constant use of one nostrum, the unlocking of 
every lock with one key, the meeting of every social 
evil with one remedy, shown by a great diversity of 
experience to be practically pernicious and theoreti- 
cally false ? We are to approach truth from many 
quarters ; we are to travel each road in both direc- 
tions ; we are to plant ourselves in firm equipoise 
on both feet ; we are to believe that those who have 
been pursuing favorite studies with equal diligence 
as ourselves, have, doubtless, for us, both instruction 
and correction ; that the earth is not made of so 
many parts, the races of men are not so multiplied, 



CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE, ETC. 309 

with minds so diversified, that one or two or three 
should explore the paths of sound thought, but that 
each from remote regions may bring his contribution. 

The application of this caution is plain in connec- 
tion with all philosophy. That system which is most 
rigidly one, most inflexible to all outside thought, 
most persistently developed from a central principle, 
presents least promise of complete truth ; has, doubt- 
less, sacrificed it most frequently, and overlaid the 
portion it possesses of it with the greatest burden of 
error. Such a scientific spirit is of the exact nature 
of bigotry : it has in it neither historic nor philosophic 
scope. It grows by interior will ; by simple, dead 
crystallization, not with the safety and certainty of 
external adaptations — of a vigorous tree, in a favor- 
able clime, under sufficient nourishment. 

The simple fact then, that intuitive philosophy 
covers both sides of human life instead of one, two 
series of facts instead of a single series ; that it 
gathers and compacts in its own system truths from 
the idealist and materialist alike ; that it roots itself 
in history, and accepts the present with no sacrifice 
of the past ; that it starts from independent points, 
and reaches harmony, not identity ; finds more mys- 
teries than one, yet every mystery a lighted torch for 
all about it ; this fact, this series of facts, makes 
strongly for the general truth of those doctrines which 
many minds, under many diverse impulses, have 
united to shape, and which have discovered no set- 
tled affinity for any one class of thinkers. It is not 
more strange that the mind should have many diverse 
ideas ; that to each of them should belong its prov- 



3IO SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 

ince ; that it should be laid on that mind to discover 
this fact, and throw order and consistency into its 
action by confining each faculty to its own labor, 
than that the external world should have its kingdoms 
waiting classification, each involving distinct forces ; 
or that human conduct and character and destiny 
should turn upon so many different ends, often in 
conflict with each other, and to be harmonized by 
wise selection, by careful inquiry and close restraint. 

It is the excellency of the philosophy now urged ; 
that it meets with response in so many directions ; 
that it has a law for matter, and a law for mind ; that 
it looks earthward, but loses not thereby its power to 
look heavenward ; that it has a solution for the super- 
stitions of religion, and the incredulities of science ; 
that it can believe here and hold fast there ; that its 
faith is not weakened by its speculations, nor its 
speculations banished by its faith ; that it speaks to 
the affections of the soul, and kindles its inspirations 
without wasting or diminishing its household goods 
of sagacity and prudence and forethought ; that it has 
a place and lodgement for all that any man, or any 
prophet, or Christ, can bring it from below or above, 
from the visible or invisible. Such a philosophy, so 
searching the soul with its voice, has on it the seal 
of truth — flexible, capacious, historic power. 

One stands upon the shore of a lake imbedded in 
the unbroken forest. His words come back to him 
with strange distinctness from the farther banks. 
Every tree and shrub in their deep recesses seem to 
have united with every other in gathering up and 
replicating the sound. Later, one stands again at 



CLASSIFICATION OF KONWLEDGE, ETC. 311 

the familiar spot, but the woodman's axe has made 
great rents in the forest. The charm is gone, and 
the spent echo has lost its fascination ; too little life 
is there to make answer to the life of the spirit. One 
must win back the woods, the unbroken forest depths, 
if he would hear again those words returning to the 
ear in clear, distinct, startling utterance. Many 
standing in the dusty ways of life, lift up their voices 
over its naked hills and cultivated fields, and the 
sounds pass forth blank and echoless from their lips. 
He that speaks in the solitude of the soul, in the 
presence of its unwasted emotions, catches the ear 
of the spiritual world, and listens in turn to its dis- 
tinct answers. 

Philosophy can wait ; the question is, whether men 
can afford to wait for philosophy ? whether there will 
not be a loss of vantage ground, a slipping from the 
heights of spiritual strength, by these unbalanced in- 
quiries into material things, by this uncompensated 
pursuit of material ends ? Well it is to possess the 
world ; but let us possess it, not be possessed by it, 
possess it for ourselves, for those high and holy ends 
we find, and find only, in searching into the plan of 
our own being, its present and potential powers. 



THE END. 



LHB ?9 



